12 x 500m

Well it is now definitely brass monkey weather. I wrapped up warmly to go out for my early morning run this morning at 6:00am and just as well as it was -4°C. Not many spies around either to spot me going for my run with a woman :
i) Because it was 6:00am and only complete idiots get up and go out at this time in the morning.
ii) Because it was bloody freezing and hanging round for a minute in that weather would leave any monkey emasculated
iii) Because no woman was insane enough to accompany me

I had decided after this weekends attempts to keep up with Nico that I needed some interval training and a little speedwork to improve my running. What better than a nice session of 12x500m to cheer myself up ? I remembered my marathon training back in September and running an even longer session similar to this in Stockholm where I ran 20x500m averaging 1:47 per interval. So how will I compare to that today?

I ran down to the Seine and began after a kilometre warm-up (warm-up being quite a ridiculous expression in the circumstances - it would have been more appropriate to refer to it as a 'refrain from freezing'). I felt quite good running the intervals and I seemed to recover quite quickly off a distance of 200m. It was only when I got back home that I was able to see what I'd achieved:

1:54, 1:53, 1:58, 1:54, 1:57, 1:51
1:51, 1:54, 1:52, 1:55, 1:52, 1:51

3rd and 5th intervals are due to crossing the main road and then a slight uphill, but average is still around 1:53 without these 2 anomalies.

So in summary, I've still got a lot of work to do to regain my form prior to the marathon. I am aiming for a reasonable time for the 10km in Houilles so more effort is needed. I'll see how I do over 15km at the weekend.

12.5 km all up in 58:47. I'm off to top myself now: hypothermia would be suitably ironic.