Wednesday Run - 18km (A return to Speedwork)

dannewton just finished a 18.12km run, that lasted for 105 minutes.
This run helped dannewton burn 1341.0 calories.

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Description from Strava:
Another Wednesday, means another attempt at Speedwork. I missed it in the corresponding session last week (mostly due to being a little tired, and a little tight for time too).

I was expecting to be tight for time again today, as although I was working from home, I was manning the office phone in the afternoon, which means I can't log of until 5pm. However I did have an unexpected stroke of luck. Something went wrong with the network or server, and while all the people in the office could carry on, the few people who were working from home today all had the same problem, and was unable to connect.

bizarrely I still had access to emails, but nothing else...

A quick message to my supervisor later, and I was told I might as well finish now (around 4pm). That meant I was able to log out and get out much early than expected, which was a plus!

And so at 4:20pm I duly got changed and headed out. The last few speedwork sessions have been running lots of tiny loops around a housing estate, and I decided I wanted to do something different tonight. I opted to do the run along the A607 down to (nearly) Navenby. Its a route I like as its mostly flat and quiet. There are several villages, but some small and narrow paths join them together.

Instead of lots of short intervals, I would run 2 longer 'Tempo' segmentsat a faster pace. The pace isn't as quick as the shorter intervals obviously, but the pace would be quicker than I would usually run, so this would be a proper work out and not just another easy run.

I started of with 4km of easy running to warm up, and then I consciously picked up the pace. I was aiming for a harder effort that I could maintain reasonably comfortably. It kind of hovered around the 5:00-5:30min/km and was not very consistent, but I mostly managed it. I then ran 2km at a mostly easy pace, before running the 2nd segment back home.

As you can see from the graph above, my pace wasn't very consistent, and is definitely something I need to work on. You can just make out the sections of tempo running, split up with a warmup, and a rest period and the n a cool down at the end. It was hard work out there tonight, I really enjoyed the chance to run at a quicker pace than I would usually

The second segment I ran for roughly 5km, before easing off and running the last 3km home at a very easy pace. My right calf was feeling a little tight afterwards, but a few minutes of stretching was enough to sort that :-)

Tomorrow will be the usual easy/recovery run of 10km, that I do every Thursday. Then the rest day on Friday and I'll be back to a long run on Saturday. The last couple of weeks have been a bit hit and miss due to the festive season, but now we are in to January I'll be aiming to be more consistent again

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If you would like to check out this activity on strava you can see it here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/10487378761

About the Athlete: Living in the UK, I am an intermittent Runner, but always striving for more consistency. When I'm not training I can be found photographing insects or listening to really loud angry music (which is the best type of music obviously!)

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