I don’t know why it should be, but whenever I think of the word fartlek I get a really clear picture of Dai Thomas first explaining it to me. Thus he was out there on the Common this morning with me, in spirit at least.
I was off to London, so I had to squeeze in a short run and based on my realisation that I’m currently running too slow to better 3.45 in the marathon, I thought I’d better use the time working on speed.
It was a stunning morning, hot even at 7am, with a slight breeze.
Fortunately the really fast side of the oblong was in the shade and unlike previous trips to the common, I managed to do four circuits without stopping for a breather, which I thought would surely give me a better time. For some inexplicable reason however, the overall 4.5 run still took me 42 minutes, EXACTLY the same as last time I ran it on 20th May.
And despite the breathlessness and the sweat pouring from me, this speed (6.4mph) kept up across 26.2 miles will not even give me a sub-four-hour marathon. Oh boy! I have a LOT of training to do!