Ripon 10 Mile Retest

More marathon training was on the menu today. And to see how my training was coming along I returned to Ripon to retest myself over twenty miles which involved running round the Old Ripon 10 Mile Race Route twice. It was a little bit cold, a little bit wet, a little bit muddy and bloody windy for the first five miles of each lap. The first lap is used as a warm up which took 1 hour 7 minutes and the second lap as a good tempo run but not too hard, which took 1 hour and 1 minute and thirty seconds. This was a good improvement in much worse conditions than my previous training run around Ripon so things are definitely moving forward. To make sure I'm not too keen to run too fast i did a speed session the day before over nine miles, running three minutes fast with two minutes jog recovery around most part of the Old Thirsk 10 mile course. Looks like I have got a bit of a thing going for these old routes.
The midweek Club training session yet again ended with me opting for staying indoors, with the indoor interval session involving running up and down the length of the sports hall for one minute then having one minute recovery, continuing with this twelve times last week. I have absolutely no idea what effect this type of training will do for you as you only get about five normal running strides in the middle of each length with the rest of the strides involving slowing down and sprinting back up to speed on each turn. One thing is for sure, your heart and lungs definitely get one hell of a work out. It may also be good for cross country training where a lot of speed changes is the norm.