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Coach Simon

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ENJOYMENT

RPE

👊 Nailed my target

PACE

Perfect. Didn’t get all tense before this one. Ran to Goat Ledge and back to check the wind then did my strides. Into the wind first half was hard but it meant the second half would be easier. Stuart ran with us and he looked super comfortable at the front running beside Jack but even he was suffering as he told me afterwards. When we turned at half way it suddenly became really easy and relaxed. Between Goat Ledge and Azur Stuart started to go ahead so I went with him, then with over 1km to go I decided to treat it like one of the four minute blocks we had done on Tuesday. We ran that last mile in six minutes. My garmin shows a distinct step up in pace from there to the end. I crossed the line exhausted and forgot to stop my watch immediately and it said 19’19”. Even five minutes later when Stuart told me we had run 19’09” I was too tired to comprehend and couldn’t understand why my watch said ten seconds slower. So pleased that training is paying off. In a month or two I could go quicker. Will continue running with the 20’ pacer from now into the spring although definitely not February with Seville marathon being February 15.

Conal Tracey

I don’t know really what to say here. Simply because of how fantastic this time is. I know how hard you worked for that sub 20, but now, 19:09, I mean that’s not even close. Imagine if you rewound a few months when that sub 20 had still be elusive and said don’t worry, you’re going to run a 19:09 in October. You would have thought I was mad. It’s amazing. Absolutely superb running Conal. I’m so pleased for you. I think those Tuesday sessions where you’ve rocked up week in, week out, put the graft in, have given you this success and you should be so proud of yourself. I think it’s important now, as you mentioned to be fair, not to go chasing anything faster just yet, we don’t need to, attention turns to Seville. What this does make interesting is that all my race predictions are based on current 5k times and I’ve been amazed at how accurate it’s been. Rarely have these predictions been wrong. So your 5k time can really reflect how fast you’ll do other distances. So a 19:09 5k means a marathon prediction time of 3:20:10 at an average pace of 4:45 per km. So I think that’s the pace we need to start focusing on now for your marathon training. Exciting times ahead.