30 April - Sessions 108 - 110

1945 BST - Thursday (session 108) was interval day. 12x90 seconds with 90 second recoveries. I wasn't able to use the track yet again. This time I had a partner, but the track was already booked and they were using all the lanes. Oh well. decided to run the loop around Axa again. I actually like it. It's more challenging than the track because it isn't flat. Since it's all on the same side of the road, traffic isn't too much of a concern. You just have to watch the two car park exits. At this time of day it was fine.

It was a little warm, but not as warm as last week so that was good. When I started off and did the first couple of intervals, I didn't think I quite had it. I felt like I was really struggling. I kept going though as best I could. On the first two or three laps my heart rate barely reached 90%. After that I reached >90% no problem and it wasn't coming down so fast...and I was getting fatigued. I did 6 intervals without walking. After that I walked a little bit after each interval to get my HR down. I still felt I wasn't doing that well.

When I reviewed the data I was pretty surprised when I saw I ran every fast split at less than 6 min/mile. The first thought I had was "who is this fast guy wearing my Garmin!" This is just amazing. I couldn't believe it. Needless to say I was more than pleased with my performance. I really never thought I would be doing this well. Well worth the frustration and effort.

Friday was my routine SnC day. 30 minute warm up in the pool followed by my standard TRX workout. And no I didn't go to the royal wedding nor did I receive an invitation. I watched it on TV like most of us common folk!

Saturday I ran another 3 mile aerobic test to see how I have been progressing. All 4 of us climbed in the car and we drove by our friends Tim and Heather's house. They live next to the Clifton Downs (I think that's what it's called)  which is a rather large park that is great for running. Tim is training for an upcoming 10K. He and Tanya ran together while I ran my test. They did quite well. It was good for both of them to run together...they helped each other in different ways. I ran my test...20 minute warm up @ 65% followed by the 3 miles @ 70% and a cool down at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed running at this park. I liked it so much I am going back tomorrow morning for my LSD. I ran 3 laps today and I figure 21 miles (tomorrow's session) is not quite 10 laps. I liked it so much the prospect of doing 10 laps doesn't bother me a bit. That's how nice it is. And they have a toilet :) I'm not sure if it will be open tomorrow morning, but even if it isn't there are a lot of secluded bushes!

Anyway, when I reviewed the data I was a little bit disappointed. My 70% pace was the same as 4 weeks ago ~7:40. I thought it might have been 5 or 10 seconds better. It was a little more difficult finding a "groove" this morning. The route around the park wasn't flat and the breeze was fairly brisk. It probably wouldn't have mattered though, which is ok. I did  however, make significant improvement at 65%...about 50 sec/mile. Wow. I'm not sure what access you have when looking at my garmin data (if you even look :) ) but if you go to activities you can tick the little boxes on the left hand side and compare activities at the top. It's pretty neat feature and you can easily see my progress. Just in case you don't want to do that, I included the link to my last test (Session 82)

Thursday's Intervals:
Edinburgh Marathon Training Session 108
Saturday's 3 mile aerobic test:
Edinburgh Marathon Training Session 110
3 mile test 4 weeks ago:
Edinburgh Marathon Training Session 82