Going for Gold.

   Fully fuelled off I went to the gym for my 5.25km treadmill test. My reward for completing the test at 20kmh was that I wouldn't make myself do any more intervals after the test and that  I would just jog for thirty minutes. After a good warm up I got started on my test, the first few minutes were hard enough and then the mental games started. How on earth am I going to keep this pace up for almost sixteen minutes came to mind, I focused on completing a quarter of the time then a third of the time soon after that. Things were definitely heating up by the halfway point but I knew soon after that I would be completing two thirds of my test. My next job was to match my previous best at 20kmh which was fourteen minutes and with that done every second thereafter would be a bonus. As I passed the  fifteen minute mark at full steam it was time to think about the sprint finish, and with two hundred metres to go I cranked the speed up and finished in 15 minutes 47 seconds. I would guesstimate a 15 minute 40 seconds 5k out on the road should be achievable. Wow, I can't believe I have actually completed my test above after working on it for months on end. Only one thing to do now and that is make a start on the next level.  Going back to the National masters 5k championships in June the gold was won in 15 minutes 39 seconds, that means I need at least another two seconds of improvement before next year.
  My good old army 1.5 mile test run is now down to 7 minutes 12 seconds, my aim was to break 7 minutes. Seeing as I'm struggling so hard knocking ten seconds off a 5k test knocking thirteen seconds over the shorter distance is seeming very unlikely but I won't be giving up trying just yet that is for sure.
   Seeing as my legs now feel quite good after a relative short training session I have lined up a treat for them tomorrow morning as in a serious hilly sixteen miler, nice and steady but working hard on the uphill sections.