Sunday club session

The culmination of our 4 day weekend, and our drive to make the most running time out of that available, Nico and I decided to run over to the club this morning before starting the session. Laurence would take the car.

It was tough from the start. Despite the relatively easy pace to begin with, I could feel my legs and the tiredness from yesterday. Nico said as much himself and we took it fairly easily through the forest to the clubhouse. What made matters harder was the global improvement in the weather. It was 14°C at 8:30 am this morning and although there were no blue skies the warmth was accompanied with a high level of humidity. By the time we reached St Germain, I was sweating heavily.

There was a good turnout this morning and 2 groups formed: one with Miguel for 3x12' at threshold and the other with Michel for 2x20' at threshold along the Paris St Germain course which takes place next week. After a quick warm-up, I headed off with Nico, Jean-Marc, Anis, Ylies, Fred, Olivier and co for Miguel's session, leaving Laurence with the vast majority of the women to do their own thing. We finished the warm-up by the Légion d'Honneur retirement home and then began the session proper.

I started off easily enough, happy to follow Olivier along the tracks towards Le Mesnil while Anis, Ylies and Nico powered off in front. We were running at about 3:50 pace and when I felt that Olivier was slowing slightly I took the pace and carried on at threshold pace, which by my reckoning is 3:45 / km. We were just over half way through the first interval when I heard footsteps behind and I turned expecting to see Jean-Marc but ended up face to face with Fred. We ran together for a while but when we got to the horsetrack with less stable footing, he pulled ahead chasing the group of 3 in front. I was glad when the 12 minutes were up and we had a 2 minute recovery.

It was all over all too soon and we set off again. The track soon turned into a harder surface and despite the fact that I was now running at 3:42 / km the group of 4 now (including Fred) was pulling away from me and I had to run by myself. I ran a good interval here, feeling stronger than the first and more consistent in my pace. Another 2 minutes recovery and time to pull everyone back together again and we set off on the last interval. I struggled now as we ran along the Salamander route around La Mare aux Canes. I could see that I wasn't the only one to find the going hard as Nico got dropped from the leading group on the uphill section. I managed to make it to the end despite the temptation to drop out and finish at a jog. A jog back to the club and then the 5km run home with Nico at 4:23 pace before culminating in a last 3:58 kilometre as we ran down from the church home.

Very warm and very sweaty but a good session again. It's been a good weekend with some quality runs over the last 4 days.

26 km all up in 2:05 or an average pace of 4:51 / km. Some juicy news from Laurence when I got back home from her group this morning but too good to share with you all here ;)

Thanks to Nico for a great breakfast at his house when we got back. I was almost fainting from hunger having left home with nothing more than a cereal bar in my stomach. The cups of tea and bread and jam did the world of good.

95km for the week.