Tuesday, April 02, 2013

4 x 1600 off a big recovery

Track night - and the first time in ages that it didn't feel bloody freezing. With the clocks changing it was still daylight and after my normal lap of the block (3.7kms) it was down to the track for the session.

I bumped into Gary and he asked what I was doing (no plan). So I decided to jump in on his session which was to be 4 x 1.5 miles off recoveries of 2:30, 4:30 then 2:30. There was no way I'd stick with him for the full mile and a half so I decided to just run the mile (well 4 laps) and then drop out and take the big recovery.

Here are the times:

4:57/4:54/4:54/4:53

The long recovery flatters the times - it would have been a different ball game with say a 90 second recovery. I did run a couple of slow laps during each recovery to reduce the guilt factor. The reps felt pretty comfortable which was pleasing after a couple of poor race performances (perhaps I'm just not cut-out for running well in the wind).

A good chat with Gary afterwards and I've come up with a target for 2013. Having a blog I'll put it out there - a sub 32 minute 10km on the track at the end of July (target 31:40). There - I've said it (this isn't an April Fool - that was yesterday). Gary said that to do that you must be able to run 6 x 1600m off 90 seconds at target pace about 2 to 3 weeks before the race. So for me that would be 5:04 for my 4 lap reps which sounds tough but manageable. I love a challenge.

All up 16.2kms with warm-down and a perfect evening for running.

2 comments:

Jane said...

That's some target, no doubt you can do it! 'Shoot for the moon and you will land amongst the stars' :-) And I'm with you re: the wind, it's a pace-deadener.

Brendan Glynn said...

Finally!!! You're totaly capable. Nationals are on end of July, thats a good place to run it. Come out for National league too, a 5k pb will set you up nicely for a sub 32min 10k. Even if Gary is about, run it anyway!