Tough day at the office

The session today was a tempo style run. The efforts were 3,5,20,5 and 3 minutes (total 36 minutes) and the recovery was 90 seconds between the 3 and 5 minute efforts, and 3 minutes before and after the 20 minutes.

I decided to use the out and back course that I've been using for my 10 minute efforts (5 minutes out, 5 minutes back). After a longish warm-up of 3.9km I positioned myself a couple of minutes into the 5 minute outward section as after a 3 minute effort I would be somewhere near the turnaround. That's how it worked out and I felt great. I then had my 90 second recovery and turned for the 5 minutes back to the start. Wow, suddenly I was running into a very stiff wind and it was a real effort. I decided to keep running to the end of the course which had me crossing the finish point in 5:22. At times when the wind picked up I was barely moving (it doesn't help being tall with wide shoulders - basically a sail).

Then a big 3 minutes recovery but to be honest this was most welcome. I knew the next 20 minutes were going to be tough and had to resist the temptation to pull the pin. Anyway, I started and again felt like I was floating along with the wind on the back. I reached the turnaround in under 5 minutes and then it was the tough return section running into the wind. All I could think of was that I had this to do again. Not a great mindset. I reached the finish point in 10:27 and turned again ready to go again. I tried to push this outward section and again would have been just under 5 minutes at the turn. The return section second time round was leg sapping and I felt like I had slowed a lot. I crossed the line in 10:33 (positive split of only 6 seconds) so that was a total effort of 21 minutes exactly (1 minute more than scheduled).

After 3 minutes recovery I hammered out the next 5 minute effort with the benefit of the wind. I reached my turnaround point in 4:50 and stopped. I then had the final 3 minute effort running into the wind and I basically ran as hard as I could. Finally the session was complete...

Another very tough session. A mixture of easy/hard running. I estimate I covered 11kms exactly in 37:12 of tempo running so that's an average pace of 3:23/km. About what I was after but a difficult way of going about it. I finished up with the same 3.9km warm-down and that's a total of 18.8km for the day.

A few well earned beers and a game of darts planned this evening. Then a long run in the morning...