13th April - Speed Reps

With a view to keeping things varied and interesting, and also to avoid getting caught in a 'one pace' trap, I headed down to Kimberly Reserve for another dose of speed work.

It's just over 2km to get there and its all downhill, so a nice easy warm-up.
Once at the reserve, there is a 1.1km gravel path loop. The plan was to run hard for 3/4 or about 750m, then slow recovery to start of next lap. In my mind I wanted to run 6, but was happy to adjust that based on feel.

The first effort section is purely to get a base time to work off, so not at full pace, but putting a bit of edge onto the run. Then every effort after that is used as a comparison. Obviously as time goes by the effort required to maintain the same pace increases with fatigue.

My splits looked like this:

2.35 (2.26 recovery)
2.37 (2.17)
2.38 (2.20)
2.39 (2.07)
2.34 (2.33) - reverse direction
2.44 (2.13) - switched off mentally and effort, used as a guide to 'no thought' pace.
2.36 - back in original direction and concentrated for last rep.

Overall I was happy with the splits, comparable or perhaps a couple of seconds quicker than past efforts.

As for the trip home, unfortunately it is all uphill, which after a hard session is less than ideal, and today it became literally painful as my calves objected to having to work during fast work, then again just to get home again.... so with a couple of hundred metres to go, I followed my own advice (for once) and pulled the pin to walk the rest of the way home. Something I've never done before, but today it was the right thing to do.

Total distance: Approx 12km
Total time: 55min



Shoes: Pegasus TC