Coached Running - cool!

I finally managed to get myself to the gym for the 'running conditioning' session with Terry. I was the only one that showed up. It turns out we'd both been planning to do an interval/speed session anyway so that's what we did (only one of us knew how to do that properly). We jogged out slowly, cross country for the first couple of miles, chatting a bit. Terry explained she'd done the London Marathon before, as part of the World Cup. That started to worry me. Then she explained she used to be ranked 32 in the world. At that point I was thinking I had no business running with anyone like that but we carried on anyway, but with me understanding very well how outclassed I was.

For the last 2 miles we did a ladder, which was 1 minute fast, 1 minute rest; 2 minutes fast and 2 minutes rest; and then 3 minutes fast with 3 minutes rest; and then back down to 2 and 1 again. Terry reckoned we were doing 6:20 minute mile pace for the last 1 minute, which I was extremely pleased with!

Quite a tough session but really nice to run with someone else and get a bit of coaching for the first time ever! Terry is a very enthusiastic and encouraging runner, so that was nice too. It's great to be running again and a shame I'm missing the Belvoir run in England this weekend, even if it was 17 miles in thick mud last year.