Very solid reps

I made it super early out today. Went through the meeting point far too soon to wait, so decided to use the extra time to JOG up to the canal and focus of form and recovery from Sunday's long muddy run that had racked up a fair old set of aches and pains. I was in half a mind to turn it into an easy run, but after a few mins my legs were moving more freely and I felt it would be fun to see the look on Paul, Steve and Martin's faces when they came over the bridge to see little old me already at the canal fully recovered and all set for the session.

Bumped into a top guy on his way up so moved up to chatting pace and had a blether with him as we streched off and waited for the guys to arrive. And in terms of performance potential we had the whole alphabet on show if you want to use Paul's grading system. Lots from pure newbie to top gun.

I tried to drift to the back and got a ton of comments about tactical positioning from Martin and Paul.

Session was called as yet another 24 mins on - this time split in 8 sets of 3 on with 1 recovery followed by a well needed two at the turn.

Aisha predictably set of, well, like a Rocket- but I knew she would fade and so the abuse about "Oi you blogged you were faster than her" was like water off a duck's back. And anyway someone who is actually behind you is in no position to make comments like that.

By rep three I was begining to get into it and was "steady" shall we say. Using just enough effort to clear the three mins with close to nothing left and the one minute was just enough recovery to be able to repeat the process. Martin offered to run ahead if I was to take the lead on the return, I made the trade.

We overtook Aisha during rep 3 and at the end of the rep I could see Paul and Aisha waving a bag of excuses, but I could not be bothered to try and comprehend the sign language and figured that after getting dispensation from the race organiser to take part in a Women's only race in Luton, Paul(a) had once again gone for the "girl's" option and headed back.

I'd have thrown and easy rep for the 4th, but Martin powered through it and we were on Scrutton's tail and had I not had another 4 sets of 3 to do I might have caught him. At the turn a small group formed and Martin gave us a serious pep talk. "Right guys, Karen overtaking us is ok, I can deal with that, but there is NO WAY we are letting Steve Scrutton catch us. Right boys, GOT IT?"

After that dead serious silience fell during and after the reps as Martin kicked of each one to set the pace and he huffed and puffed along. He didn't keep to the deal, stepping out and setting the pace himself at the start of the runs. By rep 6 I was feeling dizzy but just recovered enough to get back to the same pace in rep 7. And once again as form came to mind just before the metal humped bridge over the side canal I could feel the speed increase for free. I noticed Martin making even more noise than usual and after he looked at his watch for the 3rd time in 10 seconds I knew I had no choice other than to look at the top of the bridge, drive the knees high and push hard with the toes. The result was the desired gap which I managed to keep all the way to the end of rep 7 and by the end of rep 8 the gap was still there and I was seriously close to seeing breakfast again.

Now that is the sign of rock hard of reps.

At the end Strutton was on about "Where were you two? etc etc", but we were fine. Martin and I were evens stevens the whole way and ran a perfectly paced set of reps. Steve had gone out too fast with Aisha. The real class showed with only two elite catching me from the large field and I nearly crashed with Andy Wier as I missed the guy coming down through the last rep as he tried to overtake me on the uplock. My grovelling appology was accepted.

Right, so that's my high intensity work done for the week. I'm officially in taper until Friday's Hare and Hound, which will probably be my last ever.