Long Sunday Run

Sunday again so another long run to try and notch up some more mileage this week. This was especially important since because of my neck problem I'd been forced to drop a couple of runs during the week and I wanted to maintain a reasonable distance nonetheless.

Laurence and I ran over to the club in the morning adding an initial 5 kilometres onto whatever the club decided to do. There was quite a significant turnout despite the Paris - Versailles race which I wasn't expecting. Miguel was leading the session and Thierry, Jean-Marc, Jean-Pierre, Bruno and Mireille had all turned out.

The session announced was the last of the easy sessions for the start of term. Harder stuff has been promised for the future. We have been warned. Today was just supposed to be 2x10' of threshold pace running down to the bumps and back from the railway line. We set off easily, I was carrying the pack with water and some fruit gels to keep Laurence and I going over the distance. After a last minute pep talk after the warm-up we set off for the first of the 10' intervals and I ran behind Thierry, Jean-Marc and Jean-Pierre who were setting the pace. I felt really good in my legs and also with my new Mizuno Wave Inspire 6, and so I ran to the front and kept the pace honest for the end of the first interval (around 3:50).

We ran back to the rest of the group and after a 2' recovery we were off again and this time I stayed behind Jean-Marc, Jean-Pierre and then Thierry as the pace was faster (3:50 again but uphill!) and we were running into the wind up a sandy path for most of the way. I was really glad to finish this second interval and thought that I'd be able to relax when at this point Jean-Marc announced that he was going to run a thrid interval and Jean-Pierre and Thierry would acoompany him. Sucker that I am, I agreed and followed the 3 of them on the next interval. I was really tired now and could feel the effort in my legs and on an uphill stretch, I just fell off the back and tried to keep up afterwards but to no avail. I have to admit that the last interval was also fast at 3:45 pace - so much for threshold training.

Back to the club and then I ran home with Laurence who is also running really well at the moment. We were at around 5:10 pace for most of the way, which is faster than Laurence's marathon pace after more than 2 hours of running.

29k all up in 2:33