A failed attempt


I now wholeheartedly trust my watch. Or at least, when it tells me after a hard session (like MacRitchie on Sunday) that I need three and a half days’ recovery, it knows what it’s talking about. Three days and twelve hours after my last big run, my calves were still a little sore, (though not enough to make me walk funny) justifying my decision to forego Monday’s track session. Unfortunately, that still didn’t leave me quite ready for tonight.

This Wednesday was 3×10 minutes, with a two minute gap in between. I didn’t realise that you’re meant to do it at your 10k race pace – I’ve always been going at my ideal 5k pace (1:36 laps) although if I believe what my watch tells me, I should be capable of a 39:48 10k (and a 3:03 marathon) so perhaps everything is right, or all my previous races have seen me sandbagging.

Anyway, off we went. There were only five of us tonight, and for the first ten minutes I stayed right on my planned pace, oscillating between a metre in front or behind Anna, sticking to a decent 96/97 seconds per lap.

1:37.58
1:36.43
1:37.33
1:36.35
1:37.32
1:34.59

Unfortunately, after such a good start we went out too quick at the start of the second ten minutes, and I only managed four laps before I had to pull up, not capable of going on. I missed out a lap and picked up the back of the train as it came past again, but I knew I was broken.

1:32.56
1:37.36
1:37.29
1:38.20

1:36.59

Third time out, I did one decent lap, one terrible one and then one abysmal one, took another time-out, ran one more terrible lap and then packed it in, not wanting to fill my legs with junk miles.

1:36.29
1:44.83
1:51.31

1:47.63

So on the negative side, I only managed nineteen and a half good minutes out of a planned thirty minute session. But on the positive side, that first ten minutes was absolutely solid, I feel I can trust the recovery advice from the Garmin, and overall I feel a lot more consistent than I did six months ago. There’s a few modifications my lifestyle requires, like more sleep and not eating food that makes me belch broccoli fumes on a lap-by-lap basis, but I’m getting there…


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