First Run Speedwork in 10 months

Since I injured my knee in early October last year, I have not been able to do any speedwork on the run. With the next Duathlon in 3 weeks and my knee starting to improve, I felt the need for speed (that's a Top Gun reference for any Generation Y reading this blog).

Elaine and I fronted up for the first time at the Sandringham Athletics track - the regular Tuesday run session for our new Triathlon Club (after the merger). It started with a 1.5km warmup and then 2 x 800m running easy on the turns and building pace on the straights, before we began the main set.

Clint (the coach) devised the following Fartlek session:

• 30s fast, 30s slow
• 1min fast, 1min slow
• 2min fast, 1min slow
• 4min fast, 1min slow
• 2min fast, 1min slow
• 1min fast, 30s slow
• 30s fast, 2min rest

Which we did twice, which meant 22 minutes of speed.

After going so long without any speed work, I found it difficult to find a good rhythm, but still managed to hold good speed for the whole workout. I generally did all the efforts at around 3m50s pace and encouragingly didn't struggle to hold this speed at the end. Having been disappointed with my arm action from the gait analysis video, I concentrated on my arm movement (as per Tony Benson's instructions) and I think this significantly improved my form.

There were about 40 athletes at the session. The fastest (and biggest) group contained about 12 runners who generally stayed together throughout the whole session. The rest of the athletes were spread out with occasional small groups of 3 or 4. I was concentrating on finding my own rhythm, so hung off the back of the fast group, because I didn't want to run at someone else's speed. The fast group were definitely running faster, but never got too far away - I was never lapped (on a 400m track). Hopefully by Summer, my pace will improve so that I'm comfortably up amongst this group.

I felt some slight discomfort in my knee on the cooldown lap, but this morning it is feeling fine. Overall I'm very pleased with how the session went and plan to front up again next Tuesday.

Below are the Strava details of the session: