20 x 500m

The one advantage of Stockholm is that at 6:00am it is already daytime. The one disadvantage of Stockholm is that at 4:00am it is dawn. My night's sleep was interrupted at sunrise and I never fully got back to sleep before I went for my interval session at 6:30 this morning.

The weather wasn't too bad with 12°C and it had stopped raining. I can't say that I was looking forward to this monster of a session as I consider 20 intervals as a lot. The official programme according the training schedule was 20 intervals of 500m in under 2'10" off 300m recovery. Since I was in Stockholm on business, I didn't have the time to warm-up, run 16k of intervals and then warm-down. I decided to cut the recovery to 200m and to try and run each interval in under 2'.

I crossed the road in front of the hotel and into the park and ran alongside the lake towards the historic town centre. I decided that rather than doing a loop, which would involve steps, uphills and other obstacles, I would just run back and forth along the lakeside.

The intervals went well, depsite the fact that I felt like stopping after 6 and it was only when I got back to the hotel that I was able to see what I'd achieved:

1:51, 1:59, 1:47, 1:48, 1:45, 1:46, 1:49, 1:51, 1:48, 1:47
1:48, 1:46, 1:49, 1:51, 1:48, 1:47, 1:46, 1:43, 1:47, 1:46

Clearly the second interval is an anomaly and the Garmin must have suffered a glitch. Especially since I was trying harder at the start than at the end ! I was thrilled to see the times as they confirm my form at the moment.

17km all up in 1:15 or an average of 4:28 per km.

Looking forward to the trail on Saturday to see how we can do there.