On Tuesday it was time for another track session with the ViewTube lot. We had allegedly been promised an easy session to help ease us into the New Year but this did not transpire. There were “trains”, intervals, handicap sprint 400 metre thingies and finally a relay race in which I let my team down terribly but they were all nice and cheered me on anyway. The thing I found hardest was the interval bit in which we had to run four laps of the track without a break, 200 metres as fast as possible and 200 metres at a “jog” pace. I usually do my slow intervals walking, and “jog” didn’t seem to be enough of a rest. In generally I find speedwork really really hard, because I have no speed. I sometimes think that if I were put into a 100 metre race I would only go at the same speed that I run the last 100 metres of parkrun at. Still, that’s why I go to speed sessions. Also, I have no intention whatsoever of taking up 100 metre racing. I don’t see the point. Why do all that training just to run for ten seconds?
Just like last time, the day after the ViewTube session featured another trip to the Olympic Park for Chase The Moon. Spurred on by my surprisingly good performance (1:13:58) at the last one, my aim for tonight was just to finish quicker, even if by a few seconds. I figured a month of training would be slightly, but not completely, cancelled out by the fact that I still had the remains of the Never Ending Cough.
For some reason, the course had changed a little bit this week. Instead of heading all the way around the back of the stadium on the pavements, there was a sharp left on Carpenters Road just after the tunnel, which took you into a strange wiggle round the open space in the middle of the park. It then rejoined the old route until the South Lawn, where there was a second strange wiggle. I thought this route seemed hillier and longer than the other, though my Garmin tells me this was my imagination. I definitely didn’t like the wiggles as they felt like I was running in circles trying to make up the correct distance and prefer running in a straight line.
While my plan for the last Chase The Moon had been to take it easy, this time I decided to go for it. On the whole I think my pacing was better when I was taking it easy! I ran a bit too fast for the first three km, then started to go off the boil. By the last lap I didn’t have the energy to push for a fastest lap, instead I was just holding on to make sure my time didn’t drop below that all important 7:17 per km. Fortunately, by running too fast at the beginning I had banked enough time to fulfil my goal. Final result: 1:12:55. (Garmin-says-10k time: 1:12:07) This is the fastest I have ever run 10km away from the running track and only a minute slower than my best running track time. So in summary: job done, pleased with result, but was not pretty and strategy could use some work.
Small moan is that RunThrough ran out of medals and gave me one of the left over medals from last month, which of course I already have. It did make me feel a bit rubbish when I saw all the others posting their new, shiny medals on Facebook while I wasn’t quick enough to get one.
I got home and posted about my achievement on Facebook. Do you think my friends rushed to congratulate me? No. All the comments I got were about how the race route looked a bit like a penis. I’ll leave you to decide for yourselves whether it does or not. Personally I think it looks more like a dinosaur sitting on a chair.
Next race: Victoria Park 10km on Saturday. Exactly one month until the Barcelona Half.
7:07 