6 x 1000m

I'd been looking forward to this session from Tuesday. Work and late nights meant that I hadn't been able to get out in the mornings, so I was determined not to miss this one. The only dampener at the moment with the club sessions is Nico being on holiday skiing and Gérald nursing a calf injury. Nevertheless, on arrival I saw that there were loads of faces, including many that I had never seen before. Still some of the regulars were there: Mom, Ilyes, Mireille, Fred, Thierry, Jean-Marc to mention a few. Good this meant that there'd be some fighting up front over the session and that I 'd have a few runners to push me hard.

At least tonight it was dry. Conditions weren't perfect though with a strong wind blowing in gusts up to 50km/h. We set off on the warm-up and ran around St Germain before heading back to the track to start. A few warm-ups along the back straight and we were off from the 200m mark.

Ilyes and Momo pushed to the front from the beginning and I tucked in just behind Jean-Marc using him as a windbreak along the back straight where we had the wind directly in our faces. We passed the 500m mark and Miguel shouted out 1:39. Bloody hell, I thought, I'm running at 3:20 pace when I'd been aiming for some 20 seconds slower than this. Jean-Marc pulled away from me down the home straight and I battled to stay in contention down the back straight as I lost my wind shelter. He tired at this point and I caught him around the bend following him home down the home straight to finish the first interval in 3:24. Ilyes and Momo were a good 8-9 seconds ahead.

We ran back to the 200m mark and set off again after this 2:25 recovery. It was exactly the same story with Jean-Marc just ahead and then a group with Fred, Simon and Thierry about 5 seconds behind us. We finished in 3:24 again and I ran back to the start pushing the others by reducing the recovery to 2:00 now. We ran the next 3 in this manner with Jean-Marc and I finishing together every time. On the fifth interval though, Jean-Marc was using me as the wind-breaker and finished behind me. He didn't run the last.

I ran back and didn't wait for Mom and Ilyes who were taking longer recoveries. I ran the last interval on my own in 3:28 so slightly slower as I didn't have the same incentive to run as hard but still competitive nonetheless.

A fantastic session then with 3:24, 3:24, 3:23, 3:24, 3:25 and 3:28 to finish all off 2' recovery.

Couldn't help but tell Miguel that Nico would have struggled to keep up especially after so much 'après-ski'.

14.1km all up in 1:17.