Marathon training

Nico obviously needed to rub yesterday's victory home to me, as if sharing a car with him back home yesterday wasn't enough. He invited me to go for a run with him this evening so that he could have a running partner to moan too about how tough his marathon training is, how he's going to beat my time in Florence, how sore his foot is, etc., etc. Masochist as I am, I agreed. So what was on the cards ?

2 x 15 minutes at marathon pace. "Who's marathon pace is that then?", I asked innocently. Mine apparently, as we were to run at 4'00 per kilometre for 15 minutes and it would have been 15 seconds slower if we were running at his marathon pace.

We set off to run my usual route around town and luckily Nico managed to avoid breaking his ankle down in the dirt track leading to the river. Damn! We got to the 4 kilometre mark and set off. I told Nico that we should forget the 15' idea and just run 4k and then recover for a few minutes before another 4k. Agreed.

3:53 (whoa - this is a little fast), 3:49 (weren't we supposed to slow up?), 3:45 (slower?), 3:43 (wtf !!!)

A little breather now and we agreed that this was a little too fast and that Nico should lead the next block.

3:46 (I can't trust this guy), 3:50 (I take the lead and control the pace), 3:46 (efficiently), 3:48

Admittedly Nico had dropped back a little by the end, even shouting out to me to turn right when I wanted to run down to the castle. We then jogged back home at amore comfortable pace.

Nice session and just shows the great shape that we're both in at the moment. The start of the second block felt easy at 3'46 pace and we were both surprised as the Garmin's beeped together showing this split time.

14.5 km all up in 1:02. Great running.