WTF!

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday round up that is!

Wednesday I was scheduled for Intervals, quarter, half and full miles on a ladder working up and working down (¼ x 2, ½ x 2, 1 x 2, ¼ x 2) topped and tailed with a warm up and cool down. Usual place; on the beach path, not so usual weather: a strong head/tail wind depending which way you were going and usual time; and here is where it went wrong somebody moved the clocks! I managed to get through the warm up and first four sets but realized that I was going to end up in the pitch black on unlit stretch of path, after a quick readjustment I changed the miles to halves changed direction to stay in the relative light and had a shorter cool down. I ended up with a reasonable set of splits, not great but reasonable and a slightly shorter than planned run. Here are the splits:

Quarter mile intervals

Half mile intervals

Thursday I had switched for Friday (Tempo run for bike) and so this time I got to the start point earlier. Ten miles was the distance two to warm up at around eight minute miles, four at sub seven minute miles and another four at sub eight. I had traded in my Gel DS shoes, the asymmetric lacing was bothersome and for this run I was wearing Asics Banditos (doesn’t the name make you want to run like you stole something!), such is the joy of Road Runner Sports' 60 day trial. I set off with a real spring in my step, new shoes, zero wind compared to the previous day and the determination to have a good run. Well I had a great run, one the best I have had for a long time. My splits for the first two miles were a little fast. In the next four I was sooooo close to having a ladder (increasingly faster times) for the pace section; I was a mere 3 seconds off on mile 3 (#5 in total)! I eased off in miles 7 and 8 and then caught a second wind for mile 9 and went sub 7 minutes again, finally taking my foot of the gas in the last mile. So 10 miles in 1:12:35, average pace 7:15, that’s only 30 seconds off my best 5k pace of 6:47 and if you took the four miles at pace and the next two and a bit I would have run a 43:00(ish) 10k which is about 4-5 minutes faster than my 10k best. Here are the GTC splits:

Tempo run splits

It’s runs like this one that make me keep coming back for more and seeing a return on the training investment is always great. It got me thinking about to next year. I am pretty much set for the Spring, (more on that to follow) but the Summer is problematic due to the heat so, and this is early stage planning, I am thinking that I may just have to copy Nitmos’ Summer of Speed and work on 5 & 10ks and half marathons. My existing 5k and HM PBs are pretty good, I think, 20:47 and 1:37:32 respectively but my 10k PB is rubbish at 47:53. So with some work maybe I could get a sub 20:00 5k, sub 40:00 10k and sub 1:30:00 HM, having a quick pair of heels would certainly be handy when I start going longer distance next Fall/Winter…anyway, at least for now, it’s all just being kicked around in my head. .

And so this morning was a quick hours spin on the bike trainer; 15 miles making a total of 32 bike miles and just under 50 running miles for the week.

No running this weekend due to a medical thing, no biggie just off my feet for a few days. Those of you in Swap – Beat don’t forget to email me you weight by Sunday, Viv and JKRunning have had their swag added to this post, Laura I need yours. Finally Nick has some excellent incentives for you all, go check them out.