Tapering

Taking it easy was the order for the day. As I said on Tuesday, after that evening's run, I didn't want to push it hard again this week and adversely affect Sunday's race times.

I arrived at the club with plenty of time to spare. This is so noteworthy that it has to be written in the blog. I arrived in a leisurely manner for the club evening training session. No hassle, no stress, just relaxed and easy. I changed and then admired the magnificent turnout for the session. There were lots of newcomers, and plenty of old faces too. Bruno, Jean-Marc and José were there, the Rueil squad too, including Fabrice and Régis. Anne and Nick turned up and Laurence too, even Laurence's friend Christèle and Magdalene. So a huge crowd with well over 50 participants in total.
The plan was for an easy session with 10 minutes of interval in between. Since most of the faster runners were intending to take part in the 10k race at Conflans on Sunday (which should be a real cracker with 15 from the club and a good crowd going under 40'), the general intention was just to take it easy.

I ran with Nick as usual and we talked the standard talk about life in general and women in particular. Time passes so quickly as we run like this that it just feels so easy. We arrived at 'Les Charmilles', a small park next to Poissy where we were to run the faster section. I set off easily enough following Nick and Alex. I then moved up to chase Fabrice and Nico. As I passed them I could see another small group with Gérard and another runner ahead so I pased them too and encouraged them to follow me. Since I was still feeling good and easy, I pressed the pace a little more and caught Dominique until only José was still ahead. And then time was called, 10 minutes were up and it was time to head back. I saw afterwards that my pace was around 15km/h at this point with my last kilometre clocked at 3:59. I felt easy.

So definitely a deep purple patch at the moment: Space Truckin', Highway Star to be followed by a little Smoke on the Water. That's me. Easy jog back to record 10.8 km all up in 1:07.

Looking forward to Sunday. Should be a blast.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Nick is secretly training for the triathlon by getting in some swim training tomorrow at St Germain pool. Guess he wants to beat Andy this year. Training is quite so secret now though, eh ?