10 x 400m

Some aspects of the marathon training look deceptively easy on paper. Today's training schedule was one of these: 10 x 400m. Ok so that's only 4km of effort in total. That's not going to take long is it and how fast does the 400m need to be run ? 1:35 per 400m, but that is only 3:55 pace, I can do it at least 10 seconds faster than that for 10 reps. Thus went my Wednesday night thinking.

As the total distance was not huge, I was able to put in a decent warm-up and ran for almost 3 kilometres before I started. Then I began the intervals. The first interval was straight-forward, made easier by the fact that I started slightly downhill. My legs turned over quickly but my stride was still short so I figured that I could improve on this as the intervals went on. But all too soon, I was off again. I forgot to mention that the recovery was 30 seconds. And this was where the session became difficult.

It's all very well to imagine that 1:25 per 400m is possible on paper but you have to remember the recovery and after 30 seconds, you simply haven't recovered. This is like 30/30s but with 90 seconds of effort, the session is completely asymetrical and very soon the lactic is building and you simply can't go any faster despite the apparent rapidity of the intervals and the relatively low number that need to be carried out.

My times went as follows:

1:25, 1:24, 1:28, 1:21, 1:24, 1:26, 1:29, 1:24, 1:26, 1:27

So they were all fairly consistent and consistently under 1:30 which is perfect. This was definitely an exercise that would have been a lot easier on the track and a lot easier if accompanied. It was very tiring and much harder than I first imagined.

10.7km all up in 50 minutes or an average of 4:42 per km. Shame that I couldn't get to the club in the evening to manage this one and had to content myself with another early morning run. Where was Nico when I needed him ?