More hard aerobic

Last night, Wednesday, I had very similar workout to last week: 5 km of warm up followed by eight hard-aerobic laps of the 1.9-km loop in Yoyogi Park. The average pace per km of each lap after the warm up, comparing last week and this week, were as follows:
This week: 4:29, 4:24, 4:21, 4:20, 4:19, 4:14, 4:09, 4:05
Last week: 4:23, 4:21, 4:20, 4:20, 4:16, 4:14, 4:12, 4:12

Slower at the start than last week, consolidated to about the same in the middle, but then finished quite a bit harder last night. It felt it too. Actually, I didn't feel that great and was a bit dissapointed with how it was unfolding around lap four or five. That sort of spurred me to try and lift the effort a bit and resulted in the last two faster laps.

I did the workout with young Adam. He is a relatively new runner, joining us perhaps seven or eight months ago, and is now powering towards a great debut at Tokyo. Both last night and last week he gradually pulled away from me after the first few laps. He is actually a chance to break three hours on debut, but I fear he will not have the necessary long runs in his legs to hold pace through the final 7 km. It will be very interesting to see how he goes. Mika and Paddy also joined us for about four laps before dropping off to run at a more sensible pace. Paddy was far and away our club's most improved runner of 2006, and considering where he has come from, the fact he was running fairly easily with us at that pace last night was awesome. If his creaky knee holds out he is primed for another great PB at Tokyo (and if the crowds don't get us).