The week of so-called “easy”

Easy schmeasy!

According to our running program, this week is classified “easy” week, but I think the designer of the program uses that term a little too freely.

On Tuesday, we had to run 40 minutes with 20 minutes at lactate threshold pace (for me: between 5:00 and 5:20 min/km) and the only way I can see that as being “easy” is that, unlike the previous week, we were allotted a 2-minute walk break to split the 20 minutes into two segments of 10. While I wasn’t anywhere near puking, and felt I could definitely keep the pace going, I was sucking back wind pretty good.

And then there was tonight’s “easy” run, where we ran 30 minutes with 10 intervals of 30 seconds each at 3 km goal pace (for me: between 4:30 and 4:50 min/km) with a 30 second walk between each. The goal for tonight was not to be Usain Bolt, but rather Chrissie Wellington, fast and steady for the duration. We were told fun was to be had, and that by the end we should feel good about our effort but still have enough juice to do more.

TODAY’S FAST FUN RUN:
• 6 p.m. BG before: 6.0
• Temp. basal: -50 per cent (1.5 hours)
• Carbs: 1/2 banana (15g no bolus)
• Run: 10′ warmup; 30 seconds at 3 km goal pace with 30 seconds walk between each; 10′ cool down.
• Distance: 4.95 km
• Time: 30:41
• Average interval pace: 4:27 min/km
• 7:30 p.m. BG after: 6.5
• Temp. basal: +70 per cent (1.5 hours)

Well! I’ve got to say, this run was hands-down harder than Tuesday’s. Not because I was feeling overly spent, not at all, I felt I could have gone faster, I wanted to go faster, Healthy Beacon was tempting me with her carrotress ways, but I kept forcing myself to reel it in, to stay on pace, to follow the program. Pretty sure, tonight, I built up some mental toughness by way of that restraint!

And yes folks, there was fun had!