Intervals- 10 x 600s.

TUESDAY 3/5/05, 5.30AM, 15.5K- WEEK TO DATE 21.5K

Arranged to meet Vat at Rotary track for a new session- 10 x 600m with 1 minute jogging recovery, starting at 6am. So after 4.5 hours sleep I caught the train to Artarmon and ran the 5K to the track as warmup. Damned cold at Rotary- about 11 degrees with a thick dew.

We didn't really know how to pace ourselves for 600s, so figured we'd take the first one out at about 5K pace and develop it from there.

I showed no ill effects from Sunday's long run, as you can see:

2.28
2.25
2.25
2.22
2.21
2.18
2.16
2.15
2.15
2.13

2.24 for 600 is 4min/km so that is roughly 5K race pace. So the first three reps were probably a bit on the slow side but not bad after that.


I was aerobic for the first 8 with form improving on each one, the 9th was slipping into the red a bit, and on the last one I bashed it from 200m out to finish frothing at the mouth and down on my haunches. 400m splits were about 98 for the first couple down to 89 for the last one. I think this session is VERY good for raising your aerobic capacity and teaching you to hold form at the same time. Vat and I agreed that if we were running 400s instead, we'd have gone anaerobic quite bit earlier and the last few reps would have been hell, but 600s are subtly different.

Did 3.6K warmdown on the track- first 2K barefoot until the cold made my toes go numb, so I put the shoes back on.

Great session. Well pleased. Thanks Vat!