Tuesday club session

A new record. I arrived at the club with so much time to spare that Jean-Claude, the president, looked at his watch to check that it was still working and hadn't stopped unexpectedly. There was a full turnout at the club, with only a few notable absentees, namely Bruno and Jean-Marc. Perhaps that they thought that the programme was too easy. Aside from these 2, there were plenty of newcomers, experiencing their first session with the club.

The programme, now available on the website, stated that tonight was an easy jog for an hour followed by 10 sprints on the playing fields to finish. I set off with Nick and we chatted easily about life in general at a leisurely pace of 10km/h. I was quite content with the plan, just happy to take it easy and enjoy the run in the company of the other runners. Nick hinted that he would be keen to do some intervals with Thierry, but after 25 minutes of easy running we met Nico and Bertrand, and no sign of Thierry.

As usual, Nico convinced me to take part in his fiendish session designed around running the perfect 10km race. My problem is now, that Nico has improved so much, that running with him is close to torture. I don't want him to think that he can beat me, yet I personally feel that he can. Do you follow ? So in order for him to feel that he's not as good, I have to give everything to stay in front of him over the intervals - and this is starting to hurt big time.

The programme wasn't that fiendish after all: 5 x 30/30, 1x 1minute, 1x5 minutes off 1 minute float. I set off hard with the Garmin recording 18kmh for the first interval, rising to 20.9 kmh over the next few. As Laurence put it, I was actually running at Kenyan marathon pace - scary!! Nico came past me on intervals 4 and 5 and then he stayed ahead over the one minute interval. I was already tired at this point but I wanted to show him that he lacked endurance, so I gave everything on the last 5 minutes.

The plan worked, Nico was on my shoulder all the time but he didn't come past. He was obviously tired too and just hanging in there. We ran at an average speed of 16.8 kmh for 5 minutes, which is faster than my 10km race pace. It felt it too though and I know I couldn't keep that up for 37 minutes. Will have to wait and see until Sunday as to what I am capable of. Nick and Bertrand finished just behind us and are taking part in Sunday's race at Conflans too. There should be a big club turnout so that'll be fun.

Finsihed up with a cool down and then some barefoot sprints on the playing fields with the rest of the group. It was wonderful to feel the grass under the soles of your feet and to stretch out over a 100 yards. 9 of these later and I was beat.

11.1 km in 1:02 all up without the sprints at the end. A good session but I'll need to take it easier on Thursday.