WFC Runners - Training Session Thursday 15th March

This week’s session saw 7 of us meet up in Abbey Gardens for the Thursday running group.  It was great to see Alex and Tom return for their second sessions with the group.  In addition we had Sharon back after injuring her knee and Philippa D back after colouring her hair ;-).  Emma, Philippa G and myself made up the motley running crew.   We were met in the park by Adam, Magda and their kids, who were unfortunately not running, but just popped down to say hi. 

I had planned a fairly standard interval session for the group to focus on both speed and endurance.  The session was as follows:

- Warm-up and stretch in Abbey Gardens

- Jog to Barfield close

- 12 x 1minute sprints with a jog recovery in between (averaging around 3mins)

- Jog back to Abbey Gardens

- Cool down and stretch

The aim of the sprints was to run at a fast pace which was sustainable for all 12 reps.  With this in mind each of the runners picked a point on the road that they wanted to get to each time and targeted getting there within in the one minute.  As the session went on this got harder and everyone was really having to work to achieve their target.  But they did.  Everyone without fail.  It was pleasing to see how hard everyone strained every muscle and sinew to reach their goals. In fact, for the bulk of people the last rep was the fastest of the twelve. 

In between each rep the recovery jog was very steady, allowing the runners to recover from the hard efforts and prepare them for the next.   We were almost scuppered at the start of the first rep, when we realised that a barrier had been put across the road, something that wasn’t there half an hour before!  We managed to get around it, and before the second rep we managed to move it temporarily (don’t worry Mike, we moved it back).

It was a fairly mild evening with very little wind, which helped.  There were a few rain showers during the session, but this just cooled us down, and were actually quite welcome!  We ended up running nearly 4.5 miles in the session and everyone seemed suitable knackered, but satisfied at the end. 

It was another great training session which highlighted how far the runners have come.

Hope to see you all next week!!  As Mike put on social media, it is a “bring a friend” session, where you get a free session if you bring someone new along with you.  We are keen to grow the running club and get more people long to the sessions.  So if you have someone who is interested in running or improving their fitness, then please bring them along!!

It’s also only a few weeks away from it being light for the evening sessions, so we will be heading further afield around this great city of ours.  Exciting times!

Lastly, I would like to wish everyone doing the Eastleigh 10km, Fleet Half, Reading Half and Windsor half the very best of luck!  It looks like it may be a cold one, so dress appropriately!  Run well and I hope you achieve your targets!  If anyone would like to write up their race reports for me I will add them as a blog entry for the others to read.  Please send them through, with any pictures, to WFCrunners@gmail.com.

Happy running everyone

Coach James