Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Overcoming apprehension

I was pretty nervous, strangely enough, going into this session last night as the only other time I had done 1km repeats I had failed miserably to make the time target. Albeit, on that morning there had been horrible wind and rain to contend with. Nonetheless I was not certain that I could make the grade for 5x 1km in 4.01min.

Conditions were really good this time for an evening run. Not too cold and hardly a breath of wind. As always, though, it is pitch black down at the track which makes for fairly soul-less running and, I am convinced, slower times. At the very least I find it makes pacing harder as I cannot effectively monitor my splits as I complete each segment.

My plan for this session was to run each interval at 800m pace and try to hold it for the 200m extra! Given that I was completing 800’s in around 3.12 (which equates to a 4min/km) this seemed like a logical plan.

I ran the first rep in a controlled pace at 3.58 which was surprising to say the least. The second I tried to run in the same way and did 3.54 which was shocking, I knew I had got carried away. The third rep I deliberately ran slower (too slow), doing 4.02. The final two reps I just ran (!) and did 3.56 and 3.59. So the times were a bit all over the shop which is not ideal, but they averaged 3.58 which was pretty pleasing.

I’d love to know how quick I could go if I was not carrying this 10kg of extra weight.

Session total: 10.8km in 57.35min

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