This week’s speed training was ‘Track on Tour’, as I got the opportunity to visit a different athletics track out in Cornwall!

The track in question is part of the Par Track initiative. To quote their own description:

Green space, community meeting place…somewhere to meet friends, kick a ball about, run free, ride hard…run by the community and soon to be owned by the community…

https://partrack.org.uk/

What a great facility to have available to the local community! Predictably, I went along to take advantage of the track. I had to wait for a large schools’ sporting event to finish, but that just highlighted how the facility is really helping out in the area. (‘Ethopia’ were the winners!)

I found the track to be in great condition and a joy to run on.

The session itself was inspired by the session run by Waverley Harriers the previous evening:

• 4 x 1200m intervals, at ‘Target 5k’ pace. For me, that is 4 minutes per km (20 minute 5k).
• 3 minute rest periods. This time around, that equated to ‘slow walk’.

This is a staple workout for improving speed at this sort of distance.

Annoyingly, I forgot to turn off ‘Auto Lap’ on my watch before starting, but the paces of the intervals came out roughly like this:

• 1st: 3:43 per km
• 2nd: 3:47 per km
• 3rd: 3:57 per km
• 4th: 4:00 per km

I’m happy with this overall. I am hitting the pace required, although I need to put in more hard work in order to sustain this for a full 20 minutes without stopping. I also need to work on more consistent pacing (This has been a real bugbear of mine since I started this blog: Starting out too fast on runs and then reaping the consequences).

I felt strong during the workout which in itself is a good sign, and no undue stiffness afterwards. Perfect.

Finally, this is meeting my goal of doing at least one speed or hill training workout each week! Admittedly, I have only done two in a row, but one step at a time…