2 x 2000m - snow!

Back into marathon training this week in the run up to Rambouillet half-marathon. I've picked up my tried and trusted marathon schedule to get me back into top form for this race and to prepare the 80km Ecotrail run a couple of weeks afterwards. Today was a 2 x 2000m interval session at threshold pace less 5 seconds per km. I was fairly pleased about this as it's a long enough distance for me and I far prefer these sessions to a shorter VO2 max session.

I wrapped up warmly before going out as winter has finally arrived. It's been so long coming that most people have already leapt into spring mode and the arrival of this cold weather has caught most by surprise. I set out with a couple of tops on and my buff and ran down to the river and along to the castle before I began the intervals. Since there was only 4 kilometres of effort in total, I decided to have a longer warm-up.

I set off after the Maisons Laffitte roundabout and cursed the wind that was blowing sand into my face from the road. This was a funny kind of sand though as it felt cold against my skin. Duhhh - I woke up and realised that I was now running in the middle of a snowstorm and the sand was snow being whipped out of the sky in fine flakes and being dashed against my face. I put my head down a little and conitnued on battling against the elements for the first 2 km. When I finished this interval I looked carefully at the lap time to see how I'd done on the last kilometre as guidance. It took me a while to figure out that while I was expecting 3:40, it was showing me 4:00 - the bugger had played up!

Now, not only was I cold, I was also in a bad mood and wanted to get the session over with. Only one solution and that was to run faster. A 2' recovery and I set off again into the park for the last 2km. I felt I was steady as the first. Relieved to finsih, I jogged for a few hundred metres before picking up the pace and heading home. Passed a gaggle of women in the park (well 3!) running together, so I strode with them unitl they turned round and headed back to town. I ran back to Le Mesnil and who should I bump into but the same 3 who'd taken the direct route home.

Laurence is now insisting that I run in the evening as I probably made a bit too much of how good they looked while they ran.

12.8km all up in 56:22 (4:26/ km average). First interval was run in 7:30ish (3:46, 3:44(?)) and second in 7:16 (3:35, 3:41). Fairly pleased as my legs felt better than yesterday.