20 x 500m

It was that time again. The classic session in every marathon training that I've done for 4 years now: the 20 x 500m interval session. It's like a hump in the back of the marathon training programme, probably the worst session of the plan, and when you've done this, you can finally feel that you're over the worst.

It was hot (26°C) and I didn't want to start. I even felt pretty lousy on the warm-up with a pain in my inner thigh on the right leg. Nico was full of energy and running well and that just served to make me a little more despondent.

A 4km warm-up through the forest and then we began, having decided to let each other lead for 2 intervals each before swapping the lead etc. There was a little debate as to the recovery as I wanted 200m and Nico 100m. We finally agreed on 100m and 1'15" of recovery after each interval.

A quick hello to Momo, Mireille, Bruno, Philippe, Sébastien on the track and we were off. They went by fairly well with Ilyes accompanying us for the first 6. Times were as follows :

1'43", 1'40", 1'40", 1'39", 1'39", 1'37", 1'42", 1'40", 1'40", 1'39",
1'40", 1'40", 1'39", 1'41", 1'40", 1'40", 1'39", 1'39", 1'39", 1'39"

So very regular and a good pace. Happy to finish as the last 5 started to tire me out with an accumulation of fatigue on the legs.

17.7 km all up in 1hr20 and an average pace of 4'31"/km for the session.