Training V

We had a new playmate with us tonight who is the captain of a local ladies team and a mate of Chuckle Elder. It seems that she wants to get really fit for the new season as she wants to/will be playing centre midfield next season, so she's going to train with us.

As expected with her being half my age, she ran off into the middle distance with CE leaving me and Fat Lad gasping in her and his dust. Before she got away we gave her the nickname of Zico because she was wearing a Brazil shirt. She seemed quite chuffed to be accepted into the group but still, with CE, tried to run us into the ground.

Nevertheless me and Fat Lad both worked hard in tonight's session and for the first time I felt like I wasn't just dragging my feet along when the session ended. I can actually feel my fitness improving. I've a long way to go to catch up to Fat Lad as he's had 4 more sessions than me, is around 6 years younger and has the benefit of playing football for 15 years while I sat on my backside working towards my first heart attack (it hasn't happned yet and I'm hoping the hard work I'm putting in will fend it off for another few years yet!). Tonight we did the usual warm up followed by 4x4m30s minutes running at the best pace that could be maintained. In between each 4m30s minutes running we had 3 minutes rest which was supposed to be a jog but in truth we all ended up walking through these recovery sets.

Once we had completed the 4 sets we did 2x2m15s separated by a 2 minute recovery walk. I really pushed it hard on the first one and maintained the same pace as the CE and Zico for 45 seconds and it was when we turned up the slight incline and into the wind that I started to struggle. I tried to work out how far we would get on a 12m run going at the pace we started at and I maintained. I reckon I'd be looking at around 2km on a flat track with no wind, so I need to dig deep and find an extra 600m from somewhere. If I'm honest, another 9-10 sessions and I think I'll start believing that little bit more.