Sunday club run

It was hard to get up to go for a run this morning. The sunlight streaming through the bedroom window woke me early enough but the lack of sleep after a late night and the excessive amounts of alcohol still circulating in my blood was not conducive to early morning exercise.

I dragged my carcass out of bed anyway and headed to the club where the first signs that the holiday are over were showing. Quite a large turnout with Nico, Gérald, Ephrem, Nabil, Fabrice etc. Bad news was that the real couaches weren't back from their holidays so we had to put up with Michel who announced that we would be running 3x5' at threshold pace off 2' rest. This was definitely preferable to the 3x10' that Nico had announced he would be doing at 17km/h pace ! Nick was absent this morning which was a bit of a cop-out since he was at the same evening as Nico and myself so he had no excuse.

We started the session easily enough by running back towards Le Mesnil and then over the road to the cabin by Maisons Laffitte. A quick show of hands was called to see who was interested in doing 4 5' intervals and it was immediately apparent that this is what I would be doing. We set off and although it was supposed to be at threshold pace, the Garmin showed that we were actually running at about 3:45 pace. While we ran the 4 intervals at roughly the same pace, the second was slightly faster than the 3 others, but all regular at 16km/h. Nico was out in front with Anis and a new guy who wants to join next year. I was next with Fabrice alongside me and then Gérald, Ephrem and Bertrand just behind.

I was pleased with the session which was satisfying if hard. Good training for the marathon and the 10k next month. I was supposed to run 1h40 this morning at endurance pace but this session was a good alternative.

17.25km all up in 1:35. Temperature was not too hot at around 20°C.