Cross country training at Marly

What happened to the usual Corra run today? Saturday is reserved for running to Corra lake and back with Nico unless there is some major world crisis that means that we can't manage it. Until now earthquakes in Japan, bushfires in Australia and the current world economic crisis have not influenced this weekly ritual so it was with some surprise that I received a reply to my text to Nico suggesting we run at Marly instead.

Marly is reserved for corss country training sessions with Miguel and the last time I looked at the training schedule, there were no more Saturday sessions before late 2013. However, since I'm not an avid reader of the training schedules, I was prepared to admit that I'd overlooked this session and would accompany Nico and the others nonetheless. I then listened to my voicemail. In fact, the session was just with Yoan, Nico and Jean-Marc and possibly Sébastien. I felt worse now. Training with the best athletes from the club and knowing that I'd be struggling behind on my own was not motivating and a long lie-in in bed was looking infinitely more preferable.

We arrived at Marly park and Jean-Marc and Yoan turned up just after accompanied with the plan for the morning. 5 hills to begin with (roughly 100m), then 12' threshold, 6' threshold, 6' threshold and 5 hills to end off 2' recovery between each block. An easy warm-up around our usual cross-country training route and then we began. The 5 hills were straight-forward but I could already feel a little tension in my hamstrings from forcing up the slope. We then attacked loops of the pond, heading down through the trees to begin with before turning left across the grass and then back along the conifers in the long grass and then a couple of short slopes to end the loop.

The first interval saw Yoan loping away in front, Nico being gapped behind and me being gapped by Nico. Jean-Marc had run off to do a couple of slopes instead. I was running slightly under 4' pace due to the uphill slopes at the end of each loop. They were taking their toll on my legs and I'd end each loop in trepidation of the uphill to finish. A couple of minutes recovery and Nico and Jean-Marc (back from his slopes) ran back to me so that we could start on the next interval. This was exactly the same story and the following 6 minutes I'd run at the same pace as the first interval. Bis repetita for the next interval too and it was a huge relief to finish this and to just have the last 5 hills to complete the session.

Nico said that we were late for the interval. Sorry ???!! It was now he announced that we still had another 4' of threshold to run before we attacked the hills. I'd missed this completely and I now ran the last loop using sheer willpower uniquely. My legs were shot, my achilles was aching and I was hungry to boot. What a session. The last hills were hard but quick and we then warmed down to complete the 16.5k run for the morning in 1:29. Give me a fast run to Corra anyday over this...