Keith: September 9th - September 15th

"I'm never satisfied!" - Haile Gebrselassie.

Never being satisfied is not the same as not enjoying things in the moment. When I finished Sunday's race I was happy, but, like most runners, thoughts immediately turned to wanting to go faster. The beauty of running is that there is always a target to beat, whether it's someone else's or your own.

I recovered quite well from Sunday's race, possibly because of the 10k efforts I've been doing in training meaning a Half Marathon pace is not as hard on my legs.

This week's training.

Monday: 12.2m very easy - (7:38)

Tuesday: am: 5m easy-steady, 5.19m brisk (6:27) - (10.19m @ 6:51)
pm: 3m steady, 2.5m 'fast' (5:49), 1.52m steady - (7.02m @ 6:34)

Wednesday: am: 6.04m jog - (8:02)
pm: Track - 13.1m total with 3m/2m/1m @ ~12km pace off of 3 lap jogs - (6:46)

Thursday: am: 7.03m jog-easy - (7:30)
pm: 4m very easy, 6.07m steady (6:56) - (10.07m @ 7:10)

Friday: off

Saturday: off

Sunday: 5.47m jog - (8:07)

Total: 71.12m @ 7:15

Wednesday's track session was always going to be quite tough coming a few days after a fast half-marathon, but the rain on the night should have made it even worse. I had worked out that my target pace for the (metric equivalents) of 3m/2m/1m @ 12k pace should be about 81s per lap, but wasn't sure if I would be comfortable hitting that without having to exceed the effort.
As it happens, I was lucky to have the company of 2 clubmates, and seemed to be flowing quite nicely.

The targets per rep were 16:12/10:48/5:24. I actually hit 16:07 / 10:42 / 5:08 (through 3 laps @ 3:57, and a wind-up last lap of 71s).

So I basically hit 81s for the first rep, 80s for the 2nd, and 79s for the 3rd (before the quicker last lap). I was quite pleased with that.

On Friday my youngest child was sick, so I was otherwise engaged and running wasn't a priority, then Saturday morning I came down with the same vomiting bug she had. By Sunday I had recovered enough to jog, but there was no way I was even going to try the long run I had scheduled. Luckily though I nailed that on Monday of this week, but more of that in next week's update.