This was posted on the Two Oceans facebook wall just recently – and I thought about it during this session all the time!
Last week, after the pace training, I wrote “I really need to increase the speed at my speed work sessions. Please remind me of that, when I complain about a tough session in the future“.
Well, I’d like to complain now 😉
I looked at my old training records and found a pretty tough intervall session I did in 2011, before my Sub 5h Two Oceans. I thought “that’s a good test”. Oh boy…
It reads like this:
- Warm up
- 1 km at 3:59 min/km
- 1 km slow
- 2 km at 4:12 min/km
- 1 km slow
- 3 km at 4:24 min/km
- 1.5 km slow
- 4 km at 4:36 min/km
- Cool down
Well, I started it and the first intervall was as hard as expected. But I managed to pull through.
Intervall two almost killed me. It was painful after 1 km and I thought about giving up at almost every step I took. Eventually I pulled through until 1.77 km where I almost collapsed. This was too much. I walked for 2 minutes and was already scared of the 3rd intervall.
The third one was not as fast as planned, but I least I completed it.
The fourth went pretty well. For a very simple reason: I had a competitor, and this distracted me from my nagging inner voice…
After about 1 km (in my 4km session) a young guy from Canada came from behind and asked me if he could join me for a few laps (I was running 780 m laps at the Molteno Reservoir). Of course I said yes. He was 26 years old. And he started breathing hard after 3 minutes or so. Well, as a 43 year old, this was my time. I wanted to show him, what old men can do… He stayed with me for about 1.5 km, until he pulled out.
This was so helpful for me, since running with him changed my focus from looking at the watch all the time to keeping the pace and staying ahead of him 😉
In the end my pace was 3:55 / 4:11 / 4:30 / 4:36.
I know for sure that I need to continue with my speed work and all will be good.
But it was so tough – especially mentally!!!
| Distance | 16.1 km / 10 mi |
| Time | 1 h 26 min |
| Monthly distance (March) | 92.1 km / 57.2 mi |
| Annual distance | 707.6 km / 439.7 mi |
