Two Runs Today, a Speed Session and an Easy One.

This morning I drove to Rivington for a one mile warm up before a speed session along The Street.  The intention was to do three sets of four quarter mile repeats with 30 seconds rest between each rep and two minutes rest between each set.  My main aim was to try to keep a good form and at least a 180 cadence for each set.

The results of each rep are shown below:

Rep	Time	Pace	Cadence
1	1.44	6.56	186
2	1.47	7.08	184
3	1.50	7.20	182
4	1.49	7.16	182
5	1.44	6.56	186
6	1.49	7.16	186
7	1.50	7.20	184
8	1.51	7.24	184
9	1.45	7.00	188
10	1.51	7.24	182
11	1.50	7.20	186
12	1.48	7.12	182
Average	1.48	7.06	184

As you can see, I managed on every rep to get over 180 cadence so I'm pretty pleased with that. I did feel that it was getting harder and harder to keep a good form towards the end though and I was really trying hard to not sink in at the hips.

I'm also quite pleased with my average pace for the reps and am hoping to get to a point where I can keep up that kind of pace for the whole three miles without the stops in between but I'm a good way off that yet.  My best 5k race pace to date has been 7.50 so it's going to take quite a bit of work to get 40 seconds per mile off that.

NB. on my second two minute rest, I had stopped my watch and, without warning, it went into key lock and when I turned the key lock off, it had lost the session I had set it to, which is why my Strava is in two halves as I had to reset it again.

Run 1 Distance - 5.15 miles

http://www.strava.com/activities/198306416
http://www.strava.com/activities/198306429

Today's second run was just an easy one with Ruby to the top barn, up to George's Lane through the terraced gardens, along to the kennels and back home via Wylderswoode Stud.

When we set off it was absolutely hammering down with rain and Ruby was really funny.  As usual, she was excited to leave the house and ran out as soon as I opened the door but once she realised how bad the rain was she turned round and ran straight back in again.  I stood with her at the open front door for a while and she wouldn't go out, so I took her back in, closed the door and took off her harness.  She then started jumping on me in the way she does when she wants to go out, so I put the harness back on and opened the door again.  She ran to it wagging her tail and then stopped dead again and wouldn't go out.  She kept looking at me as if she wanted me to turn the rain off for her.

Eventually, I made her man up and we just went out.  We were soaked before we even got to the end of the drive but I love running in the rain so didn't mind.  Ruby didn't seem to mind after initially getting out either and we had a good run with her mostly off the lead because nobody else was around in the bad weather so no other dogs for her to chase.

Run 2 Distance - 4 miles

http://www.strava.com/activities/198483434

Today's Total Distance - 9.15 miles