Thursday evening meant it was time to take another trip to the track for a punishing 200m interval session. Last week I managed 28 x 200m, so the plan today was to add another 4 to the mix.
I ran a 5 mile warm-up to the track at just under 7:30 per mile pace and got started right away on the intervals:
The first eight went well and the splits were very consistent – 38, 38, 38, 38, 38, 38, 37, 38
The second eight went equally well and by now my legs were used to a faster cadence and ticking over nicely – 38, 37, 37, 38, 37, 38, 38, 38, 38
The third block of eight were much tougher and as the sun went down, so did my body temperature – 37, 38, 37, 38, 38, 37, 37, 37
The final eight were somewhat of a struggle. In fact, I tweaked my right calf muscle on interval #29 and was forced to take it easy for the final 3 x 200s and slow jog home – 38, 38, 37, 39, 38, ?, ?, ?
Still, I managed to log just over 15 miles with a good percentage of quality running. I’ve iced my calf and am hoping it won’t get in the way of a solid performance at Saturday’s Mud in Your Eye 6k cross country race. We’ll soon see…