Monday – Rest day 

Tuesday – 6x 800m intervals, 5-10k pace. 6 intervals run. Still a bit on the fast side. Intervals were roughly:

  1. 4:50 pkm
  2. 4:30 pkm
  3. 4:30 pkm
  4. 4:30 pkm
  5. 4:40 pkm
  6. 4:30 pkm

I think the first interval pace is sustainable in race conditions for 10k, maybe 4:40 per km but much below that I don’t think will work. I guess we’ll find out on Sunday!

Wednesday – 6.4km target 6.5km run. A little on the fast side, 5:38 ave per km, on the plus side fairly consistent throughout. Knee throbbing a little the day after, must ice it. I wore a knee strap whilst running which does seem to help, knee not a bother during the run. 

Thursday  – 11.2km target, 10.75km run so a little short of the distance. Route came up a little short and I just could not bring myself to run another half km past the house. Tough run in general actually. Storm Doris made it hard work, I seemed to be running into a strong headwind the whole time. Heavy legs in general, shin a bit sore, looking forward to a rest day tomorrow. 5:42 average pace, bit erratic. As I have a race on Sunday I’m tempted to sack off the short run on Saturday, get an extra rest day. We shall see.

Friday – rest day 

Saturday  – 5km target, big fat zero run. Decided my aged body needed the rest more than it needed the 5km, wot wiv the race tomorrow innit.  Topped that off with a big curry and a beer, which I consider to be perfect race prep. Game on!

Sunday  – 10k race, 10k run. I’ll post a race review separately, but in summary, smashed it!  By my watch, time was 48:45, chip time will be that or close to it. Very happy with that. Pace management was not too bad although I felt like obliged to employ a walk-run strategy on 2 or 3 occasions, usually in the run up to a hill. Partly mental thing I think. Still, banked enough to get in under 50 mins overall which was the goal. 

Goring 10k race