I got my kit on, Garmin at the ready, and headed out without baseball cap, or shades, so dark was it, and just a dash of sun cream on my ears, nose and top of head – as I know I can burn on the cloudiest of days, but figured a dash would be enough for my intervals session.

My legs ached a little on the 2k warmup I did, just did a very easy pace then took a breather. My plan was to try to run just under sub 50 10k pace for 5*800m intervals, so roughly just under 4 minutes per 800m, nothing too ambitious or crazy like the 3:30 800s I was aiming for last year when I ended up injured (a good pace to aim for, but no need to go totally flat out on intervals, it can lead to injury!)

I programmed the Garmin for 3 minute rests, took a few deep breaths, and set off. Probably went a bit quick at first, but not having done intervals lately I had nothing really within recent memory to compare my pace to, I ended up doing the first 800 in 4:05, so not far off my target, but now I was locked into my Garmin intervals, of course the cloud broke and the sun came out, and there was me without my baseball cap, shades, and only a little sun cream! eek!

Did the next 800 quicker, and started to remember just how hard intervals can be. Started to long for the rest periods and by intervals four and five I was fairly shattered and my legs felt a bit rubbery – decided to run the last interval as a bit of a cool down, but ended up doing it in 4:05 despite feeling like I was running through treacle and my lungs had been removed by that point.

So my first 800m intervals session in a very long time looks like this:

4:05
3:53
4:03
4:14
4:05

Average pace 5:04 per km. That is something I will need to improve on to run a sub 50 10k or even a sub 25 5k, but running consistently under 4 minute pace for each interval is an achievable goal I can set myself in the short term.

Felt sluggish at first, and had a burning sensation in my shin, but that soon went and then had to tip toe down the big Mill Lane Hill which felt hard going on my knees, but after that the discomforts disappeared and I was able to start going faster, even up the inclines, and although I was gasping and hurting I decided to try to maintain the pace and try to get a sub 30 in spite of the slow start and sapping effect of the hills.

It was a close run thing in the end, but I did the last k in 5:24 to edge a sub 30 in 29:50 and it felt good to be able to get that kind of speed up, if I could maintain that for 10k…. lol. Definitely feels like I am making progress, but think sub 57 is probably a more realistic target for the Great Manchester Run than sub 55 – but who knows!

Knee feeling fine so far.

Felt tired all day yesterday so planned an easy 3 miler – was very hard work and shin/lower legs on left leg was complaining a bit, so a few days rest are in order – no major problems but I was glad to come to a stop and just need to take it easy before next week’s races so plan not to do anything too hard in the meantime as it will not do any good now, just need to keep things ticking over!

Splits

5:37
5:51
6:02
5:53

Splits:

1 6.00
2 6.00
3 5:27
4 6:01
5 5:42