Taking advantage of the temps...and a training partner returns

This week has been pretty solid so far capped today by a decent progressive tempo effort. We had a sudden fall in temps after some storms passed through earlier this week so Wednesday morning I even had to root through my Fall running gear and grab a long sleeve shirt to wear!

This morning I rose bright and early to meet up with a fast crew (Spada, Jay, Alex, Billy and Mike B) with tempo runs on the agenda. Billy had 40 minutes at about 6 minute pace on tap, so Steve and Mike joined him, Jay was looking to do 8 miles progression, starting in the 6s and finishing in the 5s. I chose this one!

As alluded to above it was a perfect morning for a run. It was crisp and dry and just about warm enough that I could get away with running shirtless. We rolled up to the (in)famous Lansdowne loop and immediately got to work. Billy, Spada and Mike settled straight into 6 minute pace, while Jay, Alex and I dawdled about 20 seconds off the pace just trying to find an early groove that we could cut down from.

Now it must be mentioned here that Jay is only just back doing workouts after an arduous winter of injury woes. I was able to help him back on his first track workout this year on Tuesday night and now we were tempoing together. Great to have him back!

I eventually covered the 8 miles in 46:48. That's an average of 5:51 miling and given that we didn't dip under 6 minute pace until the 4th mile definitely one of my better workouts! Normally when I try a progressive run I go out too fast leaving myself too tough a base to speed up from but today we nailed it pretty much perfectly. The progression was 6:22, 6:13, 6:02, 5:49, 5:46, 5:42, 5:28, 5:26 and the 4 mile splits were 24:26/22:22. Given that the second 4 miles were definitely a net uphill and that I was wearing trainers rather than flats I'll take this!

Next up I am entered into a small local 5k on Sunday that I plan to run as a hard effort and hopefully not need anything more than that. I couldn't pass it up as a) it is local and I can run to the start for my warm up and b) my Company continue to reimburse us $25 for any running races we enter so it's free!

I am looking forward to getting a massage tonight. First one in ages. It is something I would love to have more of in my schedule but unfortunately they are not cheap!! Hopefully I can get some kinks knocked out. My left calf and achilles are a bit sore right now and my glutes on the other side are not liking me at the moment. Nothing much to worry about I hope, just getting old and a good reminder to keep on top of my exercises, self massage and stretching!

Looking forward to the weekend, helping Lisa relax and get spoiled on Mothers Day and also the huge match when Man U take on Chelsea on Sunday am in what will effectively be the League decider. I'm confident....