3 - 2 - 1

I made an adjustment to the marathon training plan this morning. Shock, gasp, WTF ! I was supposed to be running 3km in 12:00 followed by 2 km in 8:00 according to my 3 hour marathon running schedule off a recovery of 3 minutes. This seemed a little too easy so I told Laurence the night before that I'd add a kilometre at the end and try and run 11:30, 7:30, 3:30 just to be a little more ambitious. The first interval was achievable, the second uncomfortable and the third decidely stretch. But what the hell, I'd give it a go.

I allowed myself a 2 km warm up first thing in the morning before accelerating away for the first interval. I had that post-race strength in my legs that often happens after a 10km or less race. Racing these shorter distances gives me a boost a couple of days after the race and today was no exception. The only problem with these post-race boosts is that they don't last long and after the first kilometre, I was wondering if I'd be able to keep it up. I saw the Garmin after the 3rd kilometre and it showed 3:43 so that was the first target surely under the belt.

3 minutes recovery and I set off again for 2 kilometres now. I figured that I only needed to repeat my last kilometre from the previous interval and repeat this twice to achieve the goal. With the little light that was available in the park, I wasn't able to see the time when the Garmin indicated the end of the first kilometre and the second kilometre felt interminable but soon enough the watch beeped again and I rested for 2 minutes this time. One to go and the hardest, I tried to push the pace as fast as possible but I was tiring now and just looking forward to getting the thing over and done with. Garmin beeped again and I was done.


Analysis back at home showed what I'd managed:

3:32, 3:42, 3:43 = 10:57

3:37, 3:37 = 7:14

3:38

So I failed to achieve the last target but managed the 2 others. Pleased with this session as it's also a vast improvement on anything I was achieving last year in my preparation.

12.9 km all up in 56:08 or an average pace of 4:22.