Marathon training with the girls

Still feeling pretty tired after the race but decided that an easy session would do me the world of good so I settled on a marathon training session with the girls in preparation for Paris marathon in a few weeks time. They had a couple of 30 minute intervals to do at future marathon pace (marathon pace - 10 seconds per kilometre) and that suited me fine.

Turned up with Laurence at the designated starting point in the forest close to St Nom la Breteche waiting for the others to turn up. There was Katia, Sandra, Catherine, Laurence (of course) and Philippe who had turned up to accompany Catherine. We set off at an easy pace for 10 minutes before starting to run at 4:50 pace. In fact, we managed to average around 4:45 pace for the first 30 minutes and then enjoy a 5 minute recovery before the second 30 minutes which were completed at just faster than 4:50 pace. Considering that the target pace was 4:50 and they all looked fairly comfortable in achieving this, I was most impressed. They have been very serious in their preparation and in following the marathon training plan, and without any major meteorological incident or injury, they should all be very close to achieving the 3:30 objective.

It's a really nice group and I thoroughly enjoyed accompanying them over the distance. I was able to relax and recover and yet participate in a tough session for them and encourage them at the same time. The only disappointment was Philippe feeling a pain in his achilles tendon (which was later confirmed as tendinitis) thus forcing him to pull out of the Paris marathon.

13.8 km all up in 1:08 or an average pace of 4:56 / km.