This evening I decided to take a club mate up on an invitation to join Lagan Valley AV for their weekly track ‘speed’ session. I really need to work on raw speed over flat ground, so it seemed like a great idea.

Mary Peters Track, Belfast

It was a terribly wet evening with plenty of standing water on the track. My feet were soaked, as was every other part of me! The session format was not exactly what I expected, as the club were doing some ‘longer’ runs; a relative term compared to their normal 100, 200, 300, 400m sessions, but none the less it was shorter and more intense than I would normally train.

The session involved 1 x 7min @ 5k, 2 x 5min @ 5k, and 3 x 3min @ 3k pace. Having never had a pace for these distances I just ran as hard as I could. It worked out quite well, as when I compared by 3k efforts to some Parkrun, I was basically running as my fastest possible pace, 6.30/3.50.

I can see the benefit of these sessions, but only time will tell!

3 minutes @ 3k Pace!!

Here’s a link to a 3 minute sessions on Strava