Interval session

I managed to sneak away early from work when everybody had their backs turned. I arrived with plenty of time for the club session as a result and waited for Laurence who very kindly brought my kit from home with her.

We had a quick team talk with Miguel who congratulated the women's veteran team who won first prize in the ekiden on Sunday, breaking the French national record for the age category in the process. As a result, Our 2nd prize in the event on Sunday wen tlargely forgotten, except for Nick and I who talked about it as we warmed up.

Nick was planning to do an 8 x 800m session tonight in 3:06 off 90 seconds rest and I said that I'd run with him. About 5 of us were running this session with Philippe and Patrick running too. We set off for the first interval and I left the others behind on the first bend. I don't know what they were thinking as I went on to run this in 3:06, exactly what the doctor ordered. They had assumed it was going to be easy. Still, on the second one, we were a lot closer and I ran 3:05 and they were just behind me.

I can't see that it was a stroll to manage this pace, as it's 15.5km/h but I wasn't unduly tired and so I took my pace-making duties very seriously. I was disturbed on the third interval as we set off just behind a faster group doing 500m intervals and I got carried away finishing the 800m in 2:59. Soon back into stride though and the remainder were far more regular.

The intervals went: 3:06, 3:05, 2:59, 3:03, 3:03, 3:02, 3:01, 2:55

On the last interval, I let rip at about the 600m mark and had a good stretch to the finish line. The planned 3:06 time was fairly well respected and this was the training plan for a 3:15 marathon time. I looked up the 3:00 training plan times for 800m just out of interest and it showed 2:53 so I was well off this pace, but Ididn't want to tire myself out too much after Sunday's efforts either. This felt very comfortable.

Good session. 13.8k all up in 1:16 or an average of 5:32 per km.