6 x 1000m - Club session

Damn, damn, damn. Despite leaving work at a reasonable time, or at least what I considered to be a reasonable time, I knew after 10 minutes stuck in a jam on the périphérique that I just wouldn't make it in time. I called Laurence to warn her and to get somebody to keep the changing rooms open for me. This was exceptionally important tonight, of all nights, because I had all my shower stuff with me to get changed after the training to take part in that other important club business - Beaujolais Nouveau !

I arrived at the club over 5 minutes late. I'd seen the runners at the beginning of their route around St Germain for the warm-up but I wasn't too bothered as I'd figured that I could get changed and go on the warm-up in the opposite direction and still cover a couple of kilometres before hitting the track. Jean-Claude and Miguel let me into the changing rooms and chatted while I changed into my running kit. Apparently, the annual cross country chellenge organised by the club is only 2.9km and not 3km! Scandal or what ?

I ran out to find the others and after just over 1.5k I passed them in the other direction. I looked for Laurence in the dark, but not seeing her, I tagged onto the back of the last group, running with Anis and catching up on his news. No sign of Nico who'd obviously chickened out nor my wife which was more worrying. I ran back to the track passing the groups as I accelerated and saw Gérald once I'd got there. He agreed to run my 6 x 1000m session with me and we saw Nico who'd started his 4 x 2000m already, having to hurry as he had a council meeting just afterwards.

We set off on the session almost immediately. The marathon training plan was to run every km in 4'. I reckoned that this was a little easy and decided that I would run each in 3'45 to keep the pace honest. I started with Gérald and I found the first very easy, finishing without breathing excessively in the slightest. This was too easy and didn't demand enough effort. We ran a 200m recovery and started again, this time a little faster. This is how the session went and with Gérald running with me to the end for which I was very grateful.

3:46, 3:39, 3:37, 3:35, 3:32, 3:28 all off 1'15 recovery for the 200m.

A brilliant session which encouraged me no end for the marathon. I'm in top form and runing better than ever.

13.1 km all up in 1:06 or an average pace of 5:01 per km. Laurence, Katia and Sandra looked good running their 2 x 4km and Nico averaged 7:30 for his 2km stretches. All is looking good for some excellent results in florence. Fingers crossed now for the final week and the last sessions.

Good evening with the beaujolias nouveau. José and Laurent were on top form. Nico suffered from his absence. No comments now but all will be revealed after Florence !