20x400m

I got back from Stockholm and from work on Thursday too late to make it to the club session so I skipped my Thursday run and postponed it to this morning. It is probably the hardest session I have left before the marathon and I can't say that I was looking forward to it.

The programme was to run 20x400m in 90 seconds off 200m recovery. This, together with a warm-up and a warm-down, would have amounted to well over 14 km and so I decided to reduce the recovery to 150m and save a kilometre over the total distance.

I set off in some of the mildest temperatures Le Mesnil has seen for a while. It was very humid with a mist hanging over the Seine when I got down there for the warm-up, but the temperature was probably around 15°C even at 6:00 am.

I started the session after a kilometre warm-up and ran the first 400m at an even tempo not wanting to burn myself out too quickly. I tried to relax my upper body as suggested in Tom's blog and Dave Sweeney's and this works well if you can remember to keep doing it on every interval. After about the first 4 intervals, it is more a matter of pushing the legs over and trying to keep a regular pace without over-exerting yourself.

The intervals went like this:

1:27, 1:25, 1:28, 1:24, 1:25, 1:29, 1:26, 1:25, 1:28, 1:27
1:25, 1:28, 1:27, 1:28, 1:27, 1:25, 1:26, 1:29, 1:28, 1:28

The recovery was constant at a minute off each interval. Pleased with the consistency but these would have all been faster around a track. It's hard to motivate yourself when you are not sure exactly how far you still have to run and to adjust your pace accordingly. I always tend to keep some energy in reserve just in case.

Pleased when it was all over anyway. Completely exhausted and sweating buckets at the end.

13.6k all up in 1:02 or an average of 4:35 per kilometre.Weighed in at 74.6kg after the run so have lost about 1.5kg with my marathon training.