Sunday club session

In order to boost my mileage, I ran over to the Sunday club session today from Le Mesnil. I didn't have much time as I was not too eager to get out of bed this morning, and by the time I left the house it was 8:35 and I only had 25 minutes to run the 5km through the forest before the session started.

The legs were tired after yesterday's effort and although I was telling myself to take it easy, I was running even slower than I thought: 5:15, 5:10 and then 4:58 through the forest before I began to warm up. Having got to the club, I was pleased to see a really good turnout with Nico, Gérald, Thierry, José, Laurent, Bruno, Philippe and numerous women: Christelle, Pascale E, Pascale A, Murielle, etc. We even had a surprise guest when Jennifer Tave, over from California for the holidays turned up to participate. She took part in Houilles last weekend to finish 6th woman in 35:26, so a very capable runner.

The plan was to run towards Maisons Laffitte and the bumps before starting a series of 30/30 intervals for the keen runners, while tose recovering from an excess of alcohol on Friday night were given an easy recovery run instead. We started theseries of 12 intervals at the top of the bumps and I was neck and neck with Nico on the first 2 intervals before losing a little ground. José ran with Nico from this point on and I stayed with Thierry, determined not to let him gain a mental advantage before the first cross-country race in a couple of weeks time. We were running the intervals around 19km/h and although the first seemed easy by the time we hit double figures, I could feel the lactic rising in my legs. Gérald had decided to be chivalrous and was running with Jennifer just behind on this series, rather than assuming his usual position at the front of the pack.

We ran back to the clubhouse and I asked Jennifer about her usual training schedule: 120km per week on average, with some serious interval sessions, recovery runs and a long run on Sunday after the races on Saturday. A fairly gruelling schedule, but there's no secret: if you want to be good, you need to train hard and put in the distance. This is what this year's has in store for me as I try and improve my training quality and quantity. She also told me that following her excellent run in Houilles, the organisers had the cheek to call her up the next day and to ask her if she was sure she'd run 3 laps instead of 2!! They also asked her if she'd lent her chip to a male runner. All of this because she managed to beat a good number of female runners who'd been paid to attend by the organisers.

I ran back from the clubhouse to home with Nico. We celebrated our fine shape at the moment by taking it easy running the last 5 k with the following splits: 4:59, 4:24, 3:58, 4:23, 4:02 ! So much for an easy jog back home.

26.4km all up in 2:12 or an average of 5:02 per km. Good run and great to get the distance in. I'm feeling very good at the moment with plenty of energy and the desire to push it during the sessions. Long may this last.