Mon 09 Apr 07, a fartlek session

Stawell Gift day.. and one of the 'pro' runners who has been a long time Western Aths member has made his first Stawell Gift Final, good luck Matt (fourth!!!). Another guy Cookie (my YY tour guide) who is joining the Club for this Winter season finished 3rd or 4th in the 800m final.

Today I meet up with Clare at 10am for a fartlek session, we are hoping some regular fartlek sessions will start to help Clare get out of the one pace style of running that she is comfortable in. Another beautiful morning, once we arrived at Wyndham Park it was already over 20 degrees, brilliant sunshine with no wind! It has been a great Easter weekend for the weather.

We started with 10 minutes of jogging at w/up pace, finishing near Chrinside Oval (home of the Werribee Tigers), so we walked onto the oval (wow very green and soft) and did 5 strides the length of the square with a slow jog return. Then we jogged back to the path alongside the river to start with a run where she had to increase her pace ever 30 seconds, finishing up a slight hill at her flat out pace. Walking recovery for 3 minutes then back to the jogging pace and returned to 5 reps of 30 sec, increasing the pace on each beep, but this time on a flat dirt trail. According to my Garmin there was an increase of 3.5kph from the starting 30 sec to the final 30 sec, excellent. We then did some faster work, 5 reps starting 40m from a marker and increasing by 10m each rep, then 5 reps of downhill running (up to 20.5kph) over 70m and then 3 reps up a 30m very sharp hill, followed by 5 min c/down and then some stretching.

Whilst this session is very much within my capacity I still feel that I get something out of it and most importantly I get a thanks at the end of the session and I enjoy the coaching part (not sure if Clare will ever call me that) and helping a friend out.