Saturday session

I received an SMS from Nico yesterday: "Let's do Sunday's session tomorrow". Oh no! I'd been hoping secretly for an easy run to Corra and back before accompanying Laurence for 37km around the Paris marathon course. Worse, there was more: "and I've asked Ylies to come too". Running intervals with Nico is bad enough but I now had visions of being left behind by both of them chasing them over the 6', 10', 12' then 3' intervals that had been planned. I was not a happy bunny.

Nico drove me to the club this morning where we were to start the run and I had the first piece of good news. Ylies was not feeling well and probably wouldn't be coming. Obvious concern about his health but internal jubilation that I wouldn't see them both disappearing off into the distance.

We set off towards Princess Road and once at the top, we had a quick stop to stretch before we set off on the first interval. I told Nico that by my reckoning his plan of running 2 loops on the top would be 10km plus the 6km to the top of Princess and 6 km back meant a 22km run for the morning. He decided that this was too long and furthermore, he wanted to end on the downhill section so we decided to run 1 loop and then the long straight before heading back.

I set off quickly over the first interval and was surprised to see Nico behind me to begin with. I wondered how long this would last before he came charging past. I managed a kilometre and the Garmin showed 3'16" before a few hundred yards later he came past and I just hung on. I was counting down the seconds to the end of the first interval but was pleased with the speed I'd managed to start. 2 minutes recovery and we were off again.

Nico led this for a few yeards before I pulled ahead again. We were closer now and every time he came past, I'd put in a little spurt to stay with him, even pushing him hard on the slight uphill sections where he'd tire. This was most unusual. We ran a the first kilometre in 3:29 before a 3:40 uphill and then back to 3:34 for the last section and again looking at the Garmin, wondering how long I could hold on for. 10 minutes is interminable at this pace...

Nico slipped into the bushes for this recovery and I jogged on really slowly for the 3 minute recovery. When I turned around to see where he was, he'd only just finished and was 200m behind. I jogged towards him but too late, we had to start again for the last long interval of 12'. I was knackered now and just trying to hold on as best I could. The pace slowed as I ran by myself and I only managed 3:37, then 3:39 when Nico joined me as I turned back at the end of the long straight. We got back to the top of Princess Road and ran down to end this interval - 3:34/km. 24 recovery and off for the final sprint downhill. Nico had more speed downhill and pulled away. He managed 3:04/km while I could only muster 3:14/km.

A quick jog back to the clubhouse and I ran on to do a round 20km in 1:26 or an average pace of 4:19 over the distance. A tough session to start the weekend and some good practise for a 10km race soon.

All the best to the Paris marathon runners tomorrow. Firstly Laurence and the girls (Katia and Sandra on their 3h30 attempt); followed by François and Benj on their run to break the 3h00 barrier for the first time. I'll be running with Laurence from 5km to the end and Nico will be adopting pacing duties for Benj and François from the half-way point onwards.