Asymetric intervals

Another Tuesday, another interval session.

Despite the early start, I wasn't feeling too bad as I left the house this morning. There was still a little fatigue in the legs, notably the thighs, but nothing too drastic. The programme for the morning was 3km in under 12 minutes then 2km in under 8 minutes off 3 minutes rest. This was acceptable mentally as running a few kilometres at 15km/h is not the end of the world at the moment so I didn't start the day dreading the session to come.

After a short warm-up down to the river, I set off at what I thought was just below 4:00 / km pace. Despite my thoughts about this being easy, it still felt like hard work and I wondered if I'd fully recovered from the weekend. As it was dark, I wasn't able to see the kilometre splits as the Garmin beeped at me, and I was just able to see the last digit: 5 then 1 for the first 2 kilometres. I was sure that I'd run the second kilometre in 4:01 and I tried to motivate myself to push a little harder over the final km to complete the first interval in a reasonable time and still go under the objective. I finished the 3rd kilometre under a street light and was able to see the split of 3:47 and so I figured that the first 2 couldn't have been that bad as there wasn't much difference in pace.

I set off on the second interval after the recovery at the same pace again. About 3 minutes into the run I found myself daydreaming and easing off so another push and I concentrated on keeping the pace honest until the end.

The splits afterwards were: 3:45, 3:51, 3:47 for the first interval so a total time of 11:23 and then 3:47, 3:50 for the second interval with a total time of 7:37. Well under the objective fixed. I feel as though I've jumped a level since this weekend. It's always the same effort to do the sessions and the intervals but I'm running them faster than before.

10.3 km all up in 46:00 or an average of 4:26 per km.