Intervals

Back from a very nice holiday in the Alps where we didn't do any running but did a fair amount of walking, eating and drinking.

And back to a new training plan for the BUPA London 10000 which is less than four weeks away now. Very strange to be thinking about running a short fast race, after spending the last six months thinking about running a slow long one, but that's the nature of the next challenge.

On Bank Holiday Monday I got back into the swing of things with five laps of Dulwich, followed on Thursday evening by a bit of interval training consisting of 9x400 metre "sprints" separated by slow jogging.

Intervals are a great way to improve your speed for shorter races but the attraction starts to wear off a bit as fatigue sets in towards the end. However I managed all 9 intervals at a decent pace (around 8:15 mile pace for each one) so I was quite pleased with my progress after 3 weeks off.

Today wasn't quite so satisfactory - I planned to do 6 miles in Greenwich but after about a lap and a half I felt bloated and sluggish and ground to a halt. I started running again and managed a short lap of just over a mile on the top level for a total of 4.5 miles for the two runs. Not sure why I felt so sluggish - maybe the 3 weeks off were something to do with it, or maybe I set off a little too fast, or maybe I'm just not used to running up that hill in Greenwich any more. Anyway, I'll have another go at 6 miles in Dulwich tomorrow, hopefully that will work out better.

In preparation for the BUPA 10k I wore my CLIC Sargent T-shirt for the first time. Nice to be able to show my support for the other charity I'm fundraising for this year, as I will be on race day.

My total for the year is approaching 400 miles now: 391.67 miles gone. In spite of my post-marathon holiday I'm still on schedule with the challenge.