Intervals in the forest

Arrived well in time for the club session tonight and the evening was perfect: a beautiful bue sky, temperature set steady at 19°C, and perfectly dry with a very light breeze.
There was a good turnout at the club with all the usual faces and most of the fastest youngsters: Nico, Jérémie, Ilyes, Robin, Romain, Gérald and then some older faces such as Thierry, Régis and Philippe. Laurence turned up after me and decided that out of the 2 sessions on offer, she was going to take Michel's session with 6 x 90" off 90" recovery in 2 blocks whereas I would run Miguel's session of 7 x 60" off 60" recovery in 2 blocks. It was a case of 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

We headed off into the forest half way between the St Germain terrasse and Chateau du Val on the salamander trail for the warm-up. After almost 30 minutes running easily around the forest we started the session. I felt good from the word go, after being fairly apprehensive firstly by the quality of the turnout and then by my ability to cope with VO2 max sessions at the moment. I was surprised by how easy I felt over the first 3 intervals and I was able to keep up with the front runners in their group of 6 or 7 with Thierry showing the younger members that it's not because you're a veteran that there's no;life left in you. I stuck to Miguel in this first block and Gérald was just a little behind, suffering slightly after the 10km race at the weekend. The feel good feeling had worn off by interval n° 5 and I was suffering now, with my mind pushing me on and my legs refusing to respond. Definite lactic fatigue.

The second block started well and I was determined to keep both Gérald and Miguel behind me. Gérald had other ideas though and he pushed on for the first 2 or 3 intervals before blowing up and finishing with Miguel. Nico looked easy up in front with Ilyes and there were some good individual battles going on. All of my splits were run between 3:15 and 3:30 pace, except for one in the second block at 3:38 pace where I had to run uphill during the whole interval.

Finished feeling pleased with my performance. I wasn't too far behind the leading group and the sensations are returning. I need some more speed sessions like this if I'm to get back to peak condition.

12.1 km all up in 1:09.