4.5 miles hard

Distance: 4.5
Time: 31:45
Route: Arthur A

I currently have an itch to run my three main standard training routes at a hard pace to see how my times compare with the last time I tackled them - which averages out at about 6 weeks or so ago. My runs since then have been easy/comfortable, with the odd threshold session thrown in here and there - essentially following the Jack Daniels marathon training programme.

I'm not sure what good these runs will do me on a physiological level, but I personally feel a definite pyschological benefit in raising the lactate level now and then to see if all the easy/comfortable paced high mileage training (relatively high for me at least) is resulting in better times. I think mini time trials such as these are fair enough every 6 weeks or so.

Anyway, tonight it was the turn of my old faithfull Arthur A route and I shaved off 2.5 minutes from the time I set at the end of February. The first half of the run was a little uncomfortable, being both into the wind (I'm definitely in the Duncan Larkin camp on hating the wind) and uphill, but once I navigated past that phase I was able to hold a reasonbly good pace all the way home without running out of steam.

So, that's Arthur A out of the day. I'll probably try and pick off Arthur B and Portobello one at a time over the next couple of weeks and then wait for the next itch....

Tomorrow it is back to the easy mileage.