Running Demons

The tough 15 miler on Thursday and my resulting noodled legs enjoyed a very easy Friday; lots of sitting down in a darkened room wearing silly glasses. A trip to Bradford Imax for the matinee showing of Alice in Wonderland 3D felt like a real holiday treat, complete with an overfilled bag of pick 'n' mix though sadly without popcorn, which frankly just felt all wrong. A pair of easy 5 milers sandwiched an otherwise pottering about type of day. I was bracing myself for the killer session this morning; a wet and windy track session over at Seedhill. The drive to Lancashire was met with the usual rainy downpour and generally blustery weather but M & I were unphased and committed to the task; 6x1k efforts on heavy legs with a long run planned for tomorrow morning.

It was great to be running in daylight and so enjoyed a rainy 3 mile warm up around the local park complete with some hissing geese and chirpy Moorhens as we splashed our way through newly formed puddles and an occasional miniature lake. There was limited stripping off as we got to track side and after a few strides to get the sodden old legs moving we were off. M led the first rep and we alternated pacing duty which also ensured some intermittent relief from the windy straights.

The reps proved quite tough but manageable, just about. M looked very strong, more so than me. We squeezed out the full 6 with 90 second recoveries and it felt great to be working it and doing our thing at the track again. I felt a passing guilty pang to not manage the 8 reps of my pre-Xmas form. M was quick to remind me that I hadn't been running 20 mile races pre-Xmas either. The 6 were even and run at sub 35 min 10k pace so fit for our purposes and I couldn't have done any more. A really long and steady one tomorrow then, legs allowing.