Tuesday is half marathon training day

...Or it seems to be working out that way. This morning my quads were finally easing off after Saturday's excesses of hill-climbing and descending.

It was back to the question of how to run a better half-marathon in November and as Peter was kicking around too I devised and then revised a session aimed at tempo, tempo, tempo running! The necessary stuff for speed training for me is 

1. not having to think,
2.  no crossing roads and 
3. no distractions 

so I chose a dull route along the coast and back again.

Initially I was thinking we should run 14 miles with 5 min repeats at 10K pace with 3 minute recovery jogs but I began to question why we should be running so  far - wouldn't it be better just to focus on running hard for the 5 minutes hard? I'm glad I did revise it. We ran 10.25 miles, starting the session after a little over a mile (getting the road crossings out of the way) and stopping a little over a mile from home. It added up to 8 sets of 8 minutes.

It was a grey day and there was a breeze in our faces on the way out sapping our strength and taking "10k" pace down a peg or two to half marathon pace. (Or at least I really hope that wasn't 10k pace). Still we were working hard. Turning around at the Musselburgh Quayside was quite rewarding as suddenly we had the wind behind us and the pace picked up well.

I had 2 thoughts while I was out there. One seemed like a really good idea at the time. I thought (because I was thirsty no doubt) that I was going to market a new refreshing beverage called Promenade. It would be fizzy, delicious and thirst-quenching and everyone in Portobello would want to drink it. My 2nd thought was on the subject of Latte art. I came across latte art for the 1st time yesterday in a cafe near the university and I'm sure it made my coffee worth the £2.40 it cost me. NOT. For god's sake people get a running habit and then you won't even know about latte art.