4x1500m

It gets harder and harder to get out of bed when the alarm rings in the morning. The shorter days have an impact on the body clock and more sleep is necessary. I have to be frank and admit that I really didn't want to go out this morning to run these intervals. It's only the motivation to do well in the next few races that forced me to pull on my running kit and head out of the door.

The schedule was to run 30' at 70% max HR and then run 4x1500m at 90% max HR with 3' recovery. Since I don't have enough time in the morning to allow myself a 30 minute warm-up before starting the intervals, I ran my usual kilometre in 5 minutes and then began.

First impressions: a fast start and after 400m I wondered how long I would be able to keep this up. I then relaxed into an easier running posture by lengthening my stride and minimising the effort. After this first rep, I found that the 3 minute recovery was almost too long and that 2 minutes would have been sufficient. The second rep was similar to the first but I need slightly longer to recover; my recovery gait was tired and more of a shuffle than a jog. This may have been due to the hill in the second rep but still...

Third rep, I set off fast again and then after about 1km, I found I was dozing off, not concentrating on pushing the pace. I used my arms more to encourage my legs to follow and pushed to the end. The last rep was a relief to know that after this effort it would be all over.

Results after the session : 5:42, 5:41, 5:41, 5:33 which is 3:47 pace for the first 3 and then 3:42 pace for the last one.

12 km all up in 53 minutes or an average pace of 4:26 over the course. Happy to have done this one and at a faster pace than in February (3:52 /km).