Cramped my style

Work is quieter at the moment with many people on holiday and it even makes for pleasant driving now in and out of Paris with roughly a third of the traffic that I normally experience. As a result of this, even though I left just after my usual time, I was the first to arrive at the club session and able to get changed calmly as opposed to the normal rushed state of affairs. The others arrived slowly: Ephrem, Nico, Laurence, Anne and Delphine and then finally Ylies and Simon walked through the gate.

Young Nico's face lit up at this point as he was dead keen to do a track session this evening. He'd been hassling me as to what I fancied doing and frankly, I was just looking forward to taking it easy, feeling that I hadn't completely recovered from the morning's run. My answer didn't satisfy him so he was looking for further moral support from other youngsters. Seeing Simon and Ylies turning up just in time saved his evening. He ran up to them immediately and almost fell to his knees imploring them to do a track session and to his delight they acquiesced. A track session was on but what would it be ?

We warmed up together, leaving the other runners to head off towards St Germain and the equestrian centre on the western edge of the town, while we headed east towards the forest and the swimming pool. We chatted about the London riots and our solutions for dealing with the problems which were generally far more radical than anything I've heard from the British government so far. Rubber bullets weren't hard enough and some solutions involved lampposts, some strong rope and were enough to bring tears to your eyes simply with the thought of it. We all commented on how thin and fit Ylies was looking be he put this down to ramadan, rather than any serious training. The sly devil - having spent all summer on the track, turning around so many times that he was dizzy, the rest of us remained unconvinced. Nevertheless, it was Ylies's proposal for the session that was finally adopted. Nico wanted to run 500m intervals, I preferred 200m and Simon wasn't committing. Ylies suggested 500m then 200m off 100m recovery between each and we finally agreed on 5 blocks of these.

When we got back to the track young Nico almost changed his mind again about the session. The female PSG squad were out training and we had to pull him away from the trackside and stick his tongue back into his mouth before we could get him moving again. I have to admit that since the women have qualified for the champions league, they're far more talented than their male counterparts and it didn't cost € 85m recently to recruit them. A last few sprints down the home straight and we were ready to go for the first 500 metres.

Whether it was the excitement of seeing the women in their shorts or just happy to wear his new track shoes, young Nico shot off like a bullet, closely followed by Ylies. Simon and I trailed a few metres behind and I seriously worried about the pace if we were to do 5 series like this. However, after their initial fast start, neither of the front runners made up much ground on us over the last 200 metres and they finished just a couple of seconds ahead. I ensured that the recovery was jogged (and not walked) and I set off just ahead of Nico for the 200. I pushed hard for the first 100 and then eased off slightly as Nico passed me around the bend in the second 100. Another quick recovery and I was off again.

I ran the following intervals :
1:32 / 38
1:37 / 37
1:39 / 38
1:42 / 39
1:41 / 38
off 55 second recoveries on average with 51 seconds for the last 300m.

Young Nico and Simon finished almost a lap behind me as they couldn't take the pace and walked the 100 metre recoveries whereas I jogged each. Sure, they're both fast but they're lacking the mental strength to compete when it comes to stamina and endurance. This is a sad reflection of the youth of today who expect everything to come easily and be served on a plate.

We finished with a jog around the stadium on the grass until we were forced to stop this with Nico complaining of a little cramp in his left calf. The others had come back from their easy jog around St Germain by now and when Nico tried to impress Delphine by leaping over (actually struggling to straddle is more appropriate) the barrier, he fell to the ground, clutching his calf and screaming in agony. It was the most feable attempt to attract some female attention that I've ever seen. When I grabbed his foot to try and relieve the cramping, he just cried out further demanding an immediate massage from Delphine, stating that only this would solve his problems and release the tension... Pathetic ! Luckily, Delphine was having none of this and he had to struggle to a bench on his own to take the weight off his feet.

10.5 km all up in just under an hour and the only good that will come of this is that Nico should stop hassling us all for another track session in the near future.