The Return of the Burn

My thighs hurt.

On Thursday morning I did not get up at 5:55am. I stayed in bed, took gym kit to work, and headed there at 5:55pm.

Running intervals in the gym is odd. I have no idea if I’m replicating the speed I would run them out of doors or not. The plan was to run 4 x 3 minutes fast, 2 minutes slow. A fairly easy interval session, which I sandwiched between 10 minutes each of warm up and cool down running, some cross-training and weights.

I’m not sure if it was the cross-training, the intervals or the weights, but my thighs were killing me as I attempted to climb the stairs out of the gym. Getting on the bus home for my mammoth three minute journey, my legs buckled and I had to sit down.

Did I push too hard?  I have no idea. When I run intervals outside I’m fairly good at judging the fastest pace I can run each interval and still finish them.  In the gym I have to pick a speed and hope I’ve got it right. Even half-way through the interval I just can’t tell if I’m running faster or slower than I should be.

There is no way to solve this mystery. It’s not like I could measure how fast I run the intervals outside, then choose that speed in the gym. Oh, wait.