Going hard

I am definitely falling a bit behind on the old blogging front at the moment. I have a fair bit going on with work, keeping up the running, and I brewed a beer last Sunday afternoon/evening (a story in itself).

Last week I treated as a kind of recovery and mental break after the Ekiden. I only ran 42 km from three runs: Wed, Fri, and Sunday. I also swam 2 km on Thursday night. Sunday was a pretty sedate kind of 20 km in Yoyogi Park.

Yesterday morning I forced myself out of bed early and ran around a loop I used to run a long time ago. Nothing really special, just a good steady 10.8 km in 47:56 (4:27/km), average HR 139, max HR 165 (up the hill at the end of the run).

Tonight was the more interesting run. After a 5.5 km warmup with Gareth and, later, Stuart, I joined the interval workout with the rest of the club. First Wednesday of the month, so therefore 6 x 1000 m.

The first one I did in 3:35 and it felt solid but almost a little bit too relaxed. The next one I seemed to start off a bit faster and held it and finished in 3:32. This time I was closer to someone, lets call him J-meister, who finished somewhat ahead in the first rep causing me to remark to myself, "gee, J-meister is in pretty good shape at the moment." I didn't set out to chase him, but in rep 3 I finished in 3:27, right there with the J-meister. Rep 4 saw a 3:26 posted. I think this might have been the rep in which speedy Gordon came whizzing past me at about the 600 m mark, but I then found myself pulling him in over the last 100 m and finished about a second behind him.

Reps 5 and 6 were both bang on 3:27. Rep 5 I led J-meister the whole way, rep 6 he got a jump on me at the start and would have finished several seconds ahead. But that was OK because I knew I had put in a lot and finished really spent, but with a nice even set of numbers. Maximum heart rates for the six reps were: 170, 171, 178, 179, 179, 180. Last time I looked, my HRmax was about 184, so this was really getting up there.

Actually, on that last rep, I remember now that I really ran the last 400 hard. A lady in our club called Masako, very fast runner with a 2:40ish marathon PB, came past me at about 400 m. She stayed just ahead until 800, then I lifted and sprinted past her on the home straight and yelled at her to finish it hard. "Come on Masako, finish it!!" It really gave the sense of a hard workout. The 180 maximum HR would seem to agree.

So, what do you think Ewen? Is that a good solid interval workout or not?