20 Minute Tempo (Inside a total of 7,35 miles)

Tenke was sick this morning, so I went out on my own, in the rain to do the 20 minutes at pace on my own.

Plan was to warm up to the naked lady statue, do ten out and ten back, no target time, just a target heart rate zone, which I decided was 4.

I pressed the start button and instantly the Garmin whined that my heart needed to beat more quickly, so I speeded up and then decided to ignore it.

3 mins in I get hit by a fly. It bounces off my eye flies into my mouth then back into my right eye were it dies and settles. All I can see is this massive black blob at the bottom of my right eye for the rest of the set. I decide to try and ignore that too. All this ignoring meant that before I knew it there were only 6 mins left on the session and so puis que c'est comme ca, on y va! I just felt the urge to conquer the hill at the end of the clip. Another six at this pace would surely take me to the summit of the hill and further along this side of the lake than I have ever been. Suddenly Garmin is whining that I've left zone 4 and this time it is an upper barrier breach and the hill has pushed me into zone 5, but with minutes left I hold the pace and push on to find Manor, a giant golden rabbit, a petrol station and le pape fondu (which is packed with people eating fondu). I tank it past the people at the bus stop who are bemused to see me jog back past them seconds later having cleared the twenty mins.

Then it dawns on me that I'm three miles out of town and it's 1:24 and I have a conference call at 2pm that I really need to be on. So, I go for it and surprise myself at holding a shade off the tempo pace no problem. The sun is now out, the view is dramatic and I'm actually enjoying it. The freedom that running quickly brings is great. Only pass a handful of diehards and we nod knowingly at each other.

So, warm up was just under a mile at 7:45 pace. I cleared 2.78 miles during the 20 min tempo, that's 7:12 pace and then the bonus back was 3.75 miles at 7:50 pace - but most of that was miles faster as I took the time to recover back down the hill.

Spent a total of 21 mins in zone 4 and three in zone 5. So I'm pleased with that. The pace is returning slowly.

Unfortunately, that's it from a running perspective for a while, as I'm off skiing for a week in Ovronnaz and then will be in NY with work for a few days.