09:30 a.m. 10 miles all told - give or take a few metres, including 4.75 mile warm up (7:35 pace on the Garmin) 6x100m strides and 6x300m hill reps with a jog back rec and a 3.3 mile warm down (7.50 pace). Not quite what I planned. But I'm pleased with the workout; I revised it last night, based on a re-reading of Pete Magill's Running Times article on hill reps. It seemed to make more sense to have something left in the tank to build on and as it turned out, I doubt I would have managed 7 reps never mind 10; I also have the rest of the week to go...
The session was hard. Very hard. I cried for my mummy on the last 50m of the last rep. She didn't help. It was great to have that lung bursting feeling and all that fire rushing through every fibre of my body. I suppose I can stop calling myself a guy who jacked the smokes and drink and lost weight; now I can call myself a runner.
I noticed that for the first 250 metres or so of each rep that I felt good and that my form held but in the last 50 metres I struggled - the incline does get steeper over the last 50 metres. I feel like I have gained something from the session and although I wasn't bleeding out of my eyes, I worked hard. Next week I'll aim for 8 reps: I'm repeating this week's cycle because of my holiday in Portugal. The splits were: 1:10, 1.09, 1.08, 1.09, 1.10, 1.10.
I feel tired now and tonight's 6 mile recovery run may be a tad slow...
5:30p.m. - 6 miles recovery run. Could feel this morning's session in the old legs but wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. | 