Wheathampstead 1km reps

Set out on a glorious morning shorts and no winter kit. Dave and Kenny not 100%. Bums and tums had taken its toll on Dave again (not to mention the combat attack session) and Kenny was looking to press home his recovery after calf problems at Berko.

Jogged out to the start of the 10km course on Marford Lane, taking the high road through the fields.

Kenny had not managed to upload the course to his Garmin, but Dave had so he set his to "do course" and I set mine to 1km intervals with 2mins recovery. Dave's Garmin got us right on the start line.

Off we went and the fundamental flaw in the plan was quickly evident. If I was setting the pace, but Dave was the navigator then we had a problem. Dave solved this by just running the distance steady and skipping the recovery. This worked well enough, I had to show him how the compass mode worked - but he was "on course" more than "off course". Most of the session was spent listening to the Garmin telling me I was not going fast enough. Now tell me something I don't know. Stupid thing.

Rep one was tough uphill and coming to the end I was surprised to see Kenny sitting on my shoulder. Even more surprised when he was screaming along behind me on rep two. However, by rep three he was limping back at walking pace with the calf playing up again. He headed home and we pushed on.

Met up with Kenny again before the narrow bridge into Marford Park and he was not looking good as he hobbled along.

The reps averaged out at around 4:20 - best was 4:07 worst 4:30. Felt much harder than it should have and perhaps there is something to be said for an "easy" week sometime soon.

Came back on Ash Grove to go along a footpath I've never done before which was not that great but another "whats over there" question solved.

Saw Laurence from Fit Village heading home and got a toot from him to keep us going to the end.

Drove back to Wheathampstead looking for Kenny and couldn't see him so stopped off at his house and was pleased to see his trainers just outside the front door. He managed to shuffle home ok.