3 x 12' threshold

Nico drove me to the club on Sunday for his last long session before the New York marathon. I came along as I have more time available now and I'm able to make it to all of the weekly club sessions. What's more, my speed is improving and I'm feeling a whole lot better about my running. The time in the Amsterdam marathon really helped me to regain my motivation and want to pull out all the stops.

We listened to the brief about the session - 3x 12 minutes at threshold off 3 minutes recovery and then set off on the warm-up jog. There were not many people out for this session despite the fact that there weren't any big events on either. It was the start of the school holidays and perhaps many had left for a short break. Nico and Anis were there together with Bruno, José and a new guy, Sébastien. The warm-up lasted for just under 30 minutes and we found ourselves by the cabin in the forest, ready to begin the exercise.

A little discussion with Nico ensued as to which path would lead us to the car-park in Le Mesnil but José convinced us of the track to take and we set off. Nico and I agreed that we would run at 15km/h or 4'/km since he was running the marathon and wanted to run at marathon pace and I didn't want to tire myself out after Amsterdam. This was soon out of the window though as I told him that we were running too fast and he carried on nonetheless.

3:48, 3:44, 3:36, and then 4:00 pace for the last 200m.

Admittedly, the last kilometre was downhill but we were above threshold. I decided that I would tone down the effort and Nico and José announced that they would only run 2 blocks and not 3.

We set off again and this time Nico took the lead and I couldn't follow if I tried.

3:52, 3:46, 3:43 and then 3:53 pace for the last 200m.

This section was harder as we ran over the bumps and then uphill alongside the railway line in the forest. I decided that I would really ease off for the last block as both Nico and José (although he was already well behind) were pulling the plug. So off we set and I followed Anis and Sébastien :

4:09, 3:55, 3:53

So a great session in which I put some effort in over the 3 blocks and was realled pleased with the result. I felt good running too and I'm definitely back in shape after this summer and the achilles injury.

17.6km all up in 1:25 and just over 60km for the week with another 100km almost of cycling.