Training 2.5

Always looking for new venues for training and tonight we broke new ground as we headed out for Pugneys Country Park just off Jcn 39 of the M1.

The premise was simple, run as fast as we could on a single lap of the lake there. I've been told in the past, by more than one person, that a single lap is a round 2700m. We therefore worked out that by taking out the length of the car park. the distance around was probably 2500m.

We didn't bother with a warm-up as we were fed up getting wet from the heavy rain beating down. Fat Lad, Penfold (Chris' new name) and I set off at a decent pace but we couldn't keep up with Fat Lad and after about 4 minutes he started easing away from us. Penfold began to move away from me around 5 minutes in and I thought it looked a long way around the lake. Suddenly at 6 minutes and with my heart rate hitting 90%, Penfold stopped.

He hadn't seemed to be struggling and as I passed him I gave him a couple of words of encouragement. He picked his feet up again and then after another couple of minutes he stopped again and the same thing happened after another minute or so, then after another couple of minutes. I knew how he was feeling as it's just how I felt this time last year.

This time around I felt ok and despite having heavy legs, breathing hard, soaked to the skin and having to dig deep up the last couple of little hills, I still had a little left on the run in to the end. Fat Lad had just about completed the distance we had gauged at 2500m in 12 minutes. I took an extra 2 1/2 minutes which probably means that I'm around 400m short. It's not a surprise as I still feel like I am blowing away the cobwebs from not training for 3-4 months.

We had a 10 minute rest then ran the same distance again. This time we dropped the pace and kept Penfold running all the way around. I felt very comfortable and Fat Lad told me off twice for going too fast, but to be totally honest I couldn't help it. I felt I could have run at the same pace for a very, very long time. It took us all 18 1/2 minutes to run the 2500m.

We didn't bother with much of a warmdown either, just a few stretches. I burned 780 calories, with an average hr of 79% and a max of 95%. I've already planned Friday's session and it's going to be hard and as it's my last proper session for 2 weeks, I'll work as hard as I can ... no slacking!

A quick mention for the absentees Andy, not sure where he was - probably cooking up more evil training for Fat Lad when he trains with the School of Excellence gang tomorrow night - soemthing I've done in the past and it is very, very hard. Bobby and Snails were training in Halifax. Zico is injured with a strained back. Titfer, nearly made it but got held up at work.

I expect to see them all back in the next few weeks!!!