Thursday track and scandal ...

Another close run thing to make it to the session. I was out of breath by the time I got to the changing rooms having got the TGV back from Nancy, run for the metro, run for the RER, run to the car-park and panicked in all of the intervals. They were late anyway, so I finished changing just in time to leave for the warm-up with everyone, and there was a large crowd tonight.

I am pleased to announce that the club is getting younger. From the fastest members of the club, all the youngsters were out tonight: Momo, Nico, Gérald, Jean-Marc and Jérémie. At least I wasn't alone with Bruno and Nick B, but no Thierry or José, obviously running the x-country took more out of the veterans than the younger participants. By the time we got to the track, I really wasn't looking forward to the session Miguel had concocted up for us: 400m, 1000m, 800m, 1600m, 1000m off 300m recovery except 100m for the first interval. I was easily the slowest of this group and I knew it was going to be hard.

The 400m was probably the best part as I set off hard and tried to keep it as constant as possible until the line. Nico finished just ahead and Gérald just behind. So I felt fairly good about this, however the 100m recovery wasn't enough for my heart-rate to come down and the 1000m afterwards was tough. This was supposed to be at 10km pace less 5 seconds, so roughly 3:37. I fell off the back of the group now with Gérald coming past after 400m and the others leaving me from the start. It was just a battle to maintain the pace until the end. This was the same for the remainder of the intervals.

They went as follows:

400m - 1:15, 1000m - 3:36, 800m - 2:45, 1600m - 5:52, 1000m - 3:33

So another tough session and my main reason to be pleased is the shortened recovery times before I'm able to set off again.

13.2 km all up in 1:10.

Oh, and the scandal. Well, this is all related to the first round of the x-country races which is the departmental challenge. A young lady of the club apparently promised a kiss on the lips to the first senior male from the club to cross the finish line last Sunday. Anyway, Momo (having finished 4th in the race and first club member by far) turned up tonight at the training session to claim his prize. News has not yet filtered back whether said prize has been awarded or not as yet. But be assured, you'll be the first to hear it here as soon as this is confirmed. There was further discussion this evening as to whether to up the ante for the next round of the championship, but that could be considered below the belt ...