Thursday, February 16, 2012

Changing Gears

Not a session I was looking forward to. I was feeling tired from the late night, and coupled with poor weather it was a struggle to get motivated. Get out the door and get it over with...

Today was an out and back run. The brief was to take the first half of the run steady (sub 4 minute kms), then lift the pace to be running quicker than marathon pace for the return leg. This was going to be tough with a strong wind and I plotted a route that I thought would give me more of a tailwind on the return leg. That's not how it turned out...

After a 3.1km warm-up I went straight into it. I used my now bog standard local loop (more like a rectangle) and I was to run 3 sides of the rectangle (6.8km), then turn and repeat. The first section was straight into the wind, then the longest section of around 3kms dealing with a cross-wind, finishing with a tail-wind. The pace was fluctuating with the wind direction but I tried to keep the effort level consistent and I reached the turnaround point in 26:55 (3:58's).

Then time to pick it up. This was tough as it was now straight into the wind. The long middle section was also tough as it's more up than down, and the cross-wind seemed more troublesome. The run for home was good though and I really picked it up the last 5 minutes or so. I got back in 23:26 (3:27's) and that just about achieved what I set out to do.

Finishing up with a shortened warm-down of 1.7km as I was running out of time. Another big day of 18.4kms. What doesn't kill you will make you more tired and all that...

Darts and snooker to watch tonight. I may be asleep before it ends.

No comments: