Intervals

Intervals.

I hate you. 

I love you.

No other training session results in a war between Present Me and Future Me quite like intervals do.

Present Me is sitting at my desk, thinking "Am I really going to put my running gear on for the express purpose of inflicting pain on myself? Forget it."

Future Me is countering: "But I'll feel goooood after it's finished. I'll be proud and I'll be buzzing all afternoon. It's the most rewarding training run of the week."

And on it goes, until (usually, hopefully) Future Me prevails.

It happened this afternoon, of course. I didn't want to go out. I did want to go out. And I'm pleased to say, Future Me won the day. 

One of my goals is to run a sub 40 minute 10km. So my intervals are purposely hard (relatively speaking, of course): 5x1000m, aiming for less than 3:50 in the first and last, and less than 4:00 in the middle three, with a 250m jog recovery between intervals, at around 5:30 pace. My aim is therefore to have the session over (a total of 6km), in less than 25 minutes.

Today was a good day. I managed:

3:43 (my fastest ever 1000m)

3:53

3:57

3:57

3:48

And finished in 24:47 (a personal record).

And I was buzzing all afternoon.

Thanks, Future Me (who I suppose is now Historic Me).