Arriving at the track it was immediately evident that I would be doing the session in the midst of a Physical Education lesson as the track, long jump pit and shot putt circle were in use by a group of 40 or so 15 year olds accompanied by 3 P.E. teachers. As an ex head of P.E. myself it would be interesting to compare methods if they were still there after the 2 mile warm up around the park.
The horizontal flag at the neighbouring cricket club confirmed the strength of the wind and confirmed my plan to run a set of 300s. I would do the 100 recovery into the wind but it would hit me also on the last bend. In a perfect world I would liked to have reported that I thrashed out 16 x 300 at 40 minute 10k pace (72) but the average was slightly down at 75 (41.25 pace). Blame the wind as always!
In fact the only time I dipped under 72 was on the 7th rep. when 3 boys and a young lady were being put through their pace over 400 and I caught the trailing young lady up and in encouraging her to keep going,
she responded well and I in turn accelerated giving me 71.4!! Adrenalin rules OK!
I was talking to some of the youngsters afterwards. They told me that they had actually opted for P.E. as an exam subject. I said that there were no exams in P.E. when I was a teacher. I think they were somewhat amazed by the number of laps that I'd competed and even more so when I said I would be doing another 4 laps as a cool down! I thanked the teachers for allowing me to use the track whilst they were holding their chass and thanked them for the company! I must admit it was good to see the track being used for a change and have others around.
I frequently look back at how a similar session went in the previous year. The nearest session was 12 x 300
on a similarly windy day last April ; when the average was a poor 81.3. So 4 more reps in a faster average.
What was that about a sinking feeling?
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