Back on (the) Track

Gosh, it seems like ages since I ran on the track (actually, it is three weeks) and I was looking forward to tonight's session. I have certainly found the sessions this time round to be a lot harder than before and my times have generally not been as good. Not sure why: sickness, cold weather, night running, windy conditions? In any case, it just hasn't been what it was four months ago.

So today I decided to ignore target times and just run according to how I felt. Or, put another way, just run each interval as hard as I think I can. This felt somewhat liberating and I actually enjoyed myself here for the first time in a long time.

The session is the same as one I did back on 1 April so I had a clear point of comparison. This consisted of:

w/up to track 2km
1600m hard (7.00), 400m easy
3200m hard (13.53), 800m easy
2x 800m hard (3.13/3.16), 400m easy
c/down to home 2km
Total: 12km in 59.26min

Apart from the first 1600m which, in retrospect, was a little slow, the others repeats all felt about right and were within a few seconds of my April times. And, overall, door-to-door, the session was about seven and a half minutes quicker than in April so I definitely ran the easy bits much quicker too. Not that this is an objective in itself, but it means I was not getting as much rest between intervals. I am happy about this!

I think I might run like this more often.