Category: Evil stuff

10k or 12 mile?

Ever since I realised that someone I had been calling Tim “Joss” with a hard “J”, actually pronounced his name Tim “Yoss”, I can’t think of my blog without muttering, “not a yogger”. I don’t think I’m a yogger. It does sound like fun though –  perhaps involving a yomp through a Danone factory.

Yesterday I yogged a series of 6 km intervals at 10k pace, with recovery periods of half the time. For ease of adding up I went for 4min 20 secs at 10k pace, 2mins 10 secs recovery (6mins 30 secs per set). I ran around Regent’s Park so don’t really know whether I stuck to the pace, however I did note the start and finish locations of my third interval and using mapmyrun I can tell you that it was 1.06km, so that’s pretty damn close.

Having had a fairly hard week last week, including a hefty run on Sunday, my legs were seriously feeling the pain. In total contrast to Sunday, when I felt like my legs were writing cheques my lungs could happily cash, yesterday my whole system was overdrawn and bankruptcy felt imminent at the end of each fast km.

To spin out this spurious metaphor, I have a dilemma for this Sunday: do I keep withdrawing cash from the bank of the “Ryan Hall Training Plan“, and get both a 6 mile tempo run and a 12 mile run under my belt this week, or should I keep the money in the bank and save it up for a Regent’s Park 10k on Sunday morning?

I have free entry to the race, which is the only reason I’m feeling guilty for pulling out, if I’m honest. I’m really enjoying the training plan and don’t want to miss out on this week’s sessions, which I’d have to do if wanted to prepare properly for a race. Also, I don’t want to have to get up early on Sunday morning. I think the 12 miles is just edging ahead…

…Pain. Fear. Aggression…

Well, that was a fun start to the running week. I’m still red-faced at 1.47pm, and I finished the run at 7.45am. It was an interval training run, Marquis-de-Sade-style.

It was hard enough work trying to understand the instructions: “2 miles at 10k pace, 2 x 1 mile at 5k pace, 2 x 800m at slightly faster than 5k pace, with 5 minutes recovery after the 2 mile and 3 minutes recovery after the miles and the 800”.

This took me about 50 minutes in total, on a treadmill, and I summarise my issues with it herewith:

  1. What is 5k pace? I have never run a 5k race, so plumped for 0.5km/h faster than my 10k pace (so 14.5km/h)
  2. Seriously, you think I can run faster than that 5k pace? 15km/h? Ha ha ha.
  3. Turns out I can (just) over one set of 800m, but not over two.
  4. Can we just agree to use EITHER metric measurements OR miles? It is very confusing, as Mr N can confirm having run 0.8 miles instead of 800 metres for his 4th interval.

This run basically translates as a fast 10k race, broken up into pieces and getting harder as you go along. It is really really tough. By the final two intervals my thighs were burning 20 seconds in. It lulls you into a false sense of security with the 3 minute recoveries but do not be fooled, this is not for the faint-hearted.