Coaxed Eights

[OutAlongTheRiver]

A key part of this training schedule to get under 2 hours for the HM (and to do so feeling the 2hr mark is easily within grasp) is to do repeat fast intervals midweek. Today's involved 1k run at 5:20 per k, repeated 8 times with 30s recovery between each km. And a 3k warm up and cool down.

Squeezing this into a working day - especially while trains on strike - is not easy. But with HM just 3 weeks away, I needed to get it done. So dodging London traffic to get to Hyde Park for the 1k repeats, I set out over lunch.

I have to keep telling myself that slow really does mean slow - and I almost trudge through the Soho streets as they merge into Mayfair and thence Hyde Park.

I reckon that around 2/3rds the full length of HP is just over 1k and as the RK interval beep sounds, I switch to 90pbm leg pace to see if I'm at or about 5:10k pace (since I like to edge it over the RK requirement).

And I realise that even slight slopes throw me off - since the little up hill going west slows me to 5:30. And when I come back the other way I easily make it just under 5mins.

Accepting that, I realise that this is (as ever) mainly psychological - since my times per k follows a characteristic dip, as I struggle over the middle 2k and yet the last 2k I run 20s faster 'cos they're the last ones. Obvs.

Hey ho - but I finish feeling good and the last slow 2 miles dodging around the Soho streets are a sweaty breeze.