Thursday Club Speed Session

With occasional heavy showers, and the odd flash of lightning and clap of thunder about, the decision was made for us not to do a session in the open spaces of the Celtic Manor Resort golf course. Instead we jogged to the Roman amphitheatre to begin a Fartlek session.

Fartlek, which means "speed play" in Swedish, is a training method that blends continuous training with interval training. Fartlek runs are a very simple form of a long distance run. Fartlek training “is simply defined as periods of fast running intermixed with periods of slower running."

We were divided into three groups, with the fastest guys & girls leading the way. I was in the third group at the rear with the rest of the plodders.

Dave and Tania sped off a little bit quicker than the rest of our group, and so I decided to try and keep up with them.

The idea of this session was that we would run the 4 kilometers or so to a particular gate at the far end of the cycle track, stop for a quick breather, then run back to the start at a faster pace.

Checking our pace, we could see we were doing about a 9:07 min/mile, and that was comfortable, although we did have a heavy rain shower on the way which thoroughly soaked us.

Reaching the gate, the middle group were there recovering and we waited for the arrival of our group.

After standing about for a couple of minutes in wet T shirts, we were beginning to feel cold, so we decided to head back to the starting point.

Very gradually our pace quickened, and I remember looking at my watch at one point and it said 07:30, then a little further on a more normal pace of about 08:30.

With only about one more mile to go, ish, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my right calf, and so I decided not to try running through it, for fear of making any damage worse, and so I slowed down to walking pace and walked all the way back.

This was the type of injury that plagued me last year, and it is caused by getting a knot in one of the three muscles that make of the calf, then that knot binds to another muscle and pop, I pull up with a sharp muscular pain.

This time it doesn't feel too bad, so I won't run for the next week, and the following week I am on holiday, so I have two weeks to aid recovery, and then hopefully I can get back to it again.

Just to finish off, I would like to congratulate my friend Tania on her selection to the CRC B Team for the forthcoming RACK Raid on the 4th of June. Well done Tania 👍