Final interval session 2010

Before I begin my write-up for last night's training session with the club, I wanted to just express a few words of sympathy for one of my former readers. I have 4 followers on my blog. Discovered this week that one of my followers actually died in September and I now only have 3 followers, one of whom is my wife. People just don't know what they're missing!

Turned up at the club last night to find a small group of runners, despite the fact that there was no trainer this evening and a quiet jog was on the menu. Nico, Gérald and Mohammed were there, together with a good turnout from the women: Laurence, Delphine, Anne, Murielle and Pascale amongst others. Nico, Gérald and Momo were keen to run some intervals and asked if I'd join them. With this group, I knew that I'd be pushing it hard but since that is what I need at the moment, I accepted.

We ran down under Michel's guidance to Poissy and alongside the railway. This was the 5 km warm-up and then we decided that we'd run back to the clubhouse doing the intervals. 2' of effort for a 1' recovery was agreed and we'd run as many as we could before running out of road.

I had the Garmin and quickly programmed it for this session and off we set with me in the lead since I had the watch. This first section was mostly downhill and we weren't pushing it too hard to begin with - 3:40 pace for the first interval. Nico took over for the second interval and it felt hard right from the start. I was just telling myself not to give in and to stick with them despite the pain. I lost about 3 metres on them just towards the end but I was pleased to have pushed it - 3:25 pace for this one.

We passed back under the railway line now and started the next interval led by Gérald. After about a minute we hit the main road and a good uphill section which forced us to slow down somewhat. The heart was beginning to feel all of this exertion and the pace was still sustained - 3:40 for this section. Another uphill section again and we were running along the path beside the main road in the pitch black. I followed the group of 3 ahead and just stuck with them over this section. The pace was not quite as sustained and I could see that Gérald was also tiring a little which gave me a spark of hope ! 3:35 pace here. I took the leas for the next interval and pushed as hard as I could with Momo encouraging me as I was at top speed. There's nothing more disparaging than busting a gut trying to push the pace and having somebody speaking to you easily telling you to push it harder ! I could feel the lactic in the legs now and the last 15 seconds were long.

The last interval was an interval too far and I dropped off the pace rapidly, watching the 3 others leave me easily. I really felt that I was slow now and it was a surprise to see that even this interval was run at 3:45 pace. Unfortunately the others were still at 3:20 pace which explains the gap.

10km all up in just under an hour. Good, hard session and I need more of these next year. Great to run with Nico, Gérald and Momo too as there are no excuses to hang back.

A little thought for Christelle at the club last night who had written to Father Christmas requesting a Garmin 405 to help accompany her in her running and racing, having seen mine and the functionalities that it provides. Father Christmas gave her a pot of anti-wrinkle face cream instead. I think Father Christmas's cheeks are still smarting from the blows !