As I'm running my sessions with MP at a sub-3 pace, that means 6:50 or so, which still feels more like a tempo session than a pace I can keep up for 26 miles at the moment, but hopefully things'll get easier soon. Anyway - after a day of back to back meetings, all of which were of the "posh" variety so they provided water, I felt appropriately hydrated, and set off towards Riddlesden from work at a steady warm-up pace. As the clock hit half a mile I picked the pace up and ran up and down the road until I'd done 8 miles at something approximating to MP. I think I must still have had something of Sunday's half marathon in my legs because it felt very hard to maintain the pace, especially on the slight uphills and into the wind. I also think I'm getting something a bit yukky on my chest as I've had a slightly tickly throat for a day or two and I was coughing like a good 'un at the end.
Nevertheless, I managed to dig in and hold it together:
As you can see the pace was reasonably consistent, given that it's a slightly undulating bit of road and there was a fair breeze blowing down one way (the 6:40, the 6:39 and the 6:42 were mainly on downwind legs).
My HR shows how much like hard work it was though:
By the time I got to 5m it was up somewhere near the level it had been in the race on Sunday - which I suspect means I'm either still tired or the little bug I seem to have is affecting me.
Anyway - glad to have got it done, and I'm going to take tomorrow off running, and maybe Friday too if my chest still feels a bit dicky, prior to Saturday's l-o-o-o-ng run with Paul, which is currently scheduled for 22 hopefully flat miles.
Andy that looks like a hard session to do by yourself with the Brass Monkey still in your legs.
ReplyDeleteIt was, Henry, combination of a slight cold and Monkey legs - but no track this week so need a hard session somewhere. Going to try some "lactic threshold" stuff too - 30-40mins of effort at about HM pace (so 6:15ish) apparently.
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