Hard day at the mill.

 Yesterday's interval training was a tough old session, it would of been hard enough a few years ago never mind nowadays when I'm not upto  scratch with my interval training.  The session was 1 minute 30 seconds at maximum effort uphill with a recovery of 3 minutes jogging back down. Staring at that hill ten repititions was too daunting so I opted for the good old mid way extra recovery period of 5 minutes instead of the 3 minutes. First of all it makes sure that the first 5 reps are run at maximum effort as you look forward to that extra recovery period. Secondly  I want to know if I can go faster in rep 6  after the extra recovery than rep 5, and more importantly can you keep that going into rep 7.  I knew I wasn't capable of blasting out 10 reps within an acceptable margin so the last couple I was prepared to give it my all no matter how long it took, besides it would give me something to beat next time for starters.
Rep 1 - 1m 34s
        2 - 1m 35s
        3 - 1m 35s
        4 - 1m 36s
        5 - 1m 36s    + extra recovery period.
        6 - 1m 35s    faster than rep 5
        7 - 1m 37s    fighting against legs failing.
        8 - 1m 36s    fighting back against failing legs.
        9 - 1m 39s    legs gone and just taking what time I can.
       10 - 1m 40s   legs totally gone, but strangely felt quicker than  Rep 9.

 Then this morning it was a case of another hard day at the running mill in the form of a twenty one mile  long run on undulating roads. My legs were smashed to bits by 15 miles and my sore foot aka plantar fasciitis was as bad as it has ever been. Other than that is was a perfect morning for running or better still if you were racing.  Myself I have another weekend similar to this weekend and then I will be back in action with a fell race after that which I'm already looking forward to.
 
 My new route home from work by running entirely cross country made for an enjoyable change, it might of been shorter but in the end it took longer than what it takes for me to run the extended route home.  As expected there was some overgrown areas, and some paths that were unrunable which meant I had to run through ploughed fields. The closer I got back to Thirsk the better the route became. I have another route to try before winter comes and then I will be confined to tarmac for my commute.
 
  I now have five races before calling it an end to this year's racing,  It was supposed to be at the end of November but I couldn't resist squeezing in one more race so it is now the first weekend in December.  Excluding any cross country races or indoor races it should give me four months of good solid training to build the all new 2017 war machine. 2016's war machine must of had a default, I think I forgot to fit a gun by looking at some of my results.