Sunday run

I wanted to maintain some mileage this week as part of the marathon training and to increase these Sunday runs gradually until I'm running 35km prior to Florence marathon. With this in mind, I decided to jog over to the club session and back today adding an extra 10 km to the distance that the club was organising. Nico decided that this was too much for him at the moment, as he's still in the process of wearing in a new set of orthotics. Despite his relatively young age, he does act like a pensioner sometimes.

I ran quietly through the forest to the club, managing to avoid being run over by a few hundred cyclists as the forest was once again turned over to their mercy for the annual Mesniloise mountain biking event. This involves cycling for just over 3 hours in relay around an 8 km loop in the forest. It was a perfect day this year and a great change from the usual windy, muddy, rainy affair most years.

Once at the club, I listened to the prep talk and Miguel's programme of a gentle start to his coaching sessions with some 10km preparations involving 6', 3', 6', then 3' off a recovery of half of the time of the intervals. We set off and I chatted to the women who all wanted to know why Laurence wasn't running on her birthday with them. My wife had decided to make the most of her birthday by having a lie-in and finding an alternative gentler run to Maisons Laffitte instead.

We began the session with the keener runners while the others split into 2 groups: one with Michel involving 2 blocks of 20 minutes at half-marathon pace (12 km/h); and the other just running easily for 75 minutes. We started our intervals with a small group involving Ilyes, Jean-Marc and Nico running straight to the front. I followed just behind with Simon and a new runner to the club. I felt good and although I wasn't able to keep up with the first group they weren't far in front. I was running at between 3:30 - 3:40 pace which meant that by the end of the first 6 minutes they finished 15 metres ahead.

Anis joined for the second interval of 3', sprinting off from the start down the hill through the forest towards the railway line. I was running 3:15 - 3:20 pace here and he still gapped me easily with the 3 others slightly in front. The most interesting interval was the next 6' block where the gap between m and the 3 others narrowed after 4 minutes and I caught Jean-Marc and was closing on Nico. Final 3' to finish and this session felt fairly easy after some of the intervals I've been running lately.

We headed back to the club now and Anis decided that his recovery speed was above 15km/h and he proceeded to run away from Ilyes and myself, taking Nico with him. It wasn't to last though and Nico drifted back to us and we ran back at 14km/h and I continued back home at marathon pace.

25.25 km all up in 2:03 and a good run at a very pleasant temperature in the forest.