Had a great club session last night

After feeling a little despondent on the weekend, I had a great club session last night.  It's made even better by the fact that I very nearly didn't attend the session because as I was leaving it was raining very heavily (with snow/sleet in the air) and it was also very cold.  The session started off being the worst weather conditions that I have ever ran in, but the weather eased up and I'm really glad I went.  I'm not sure who said this or where it came from but the following quote always seems to ring true:

Don't doubt if you should run today, just decide that you are going to.  You only regret runs you didn't do and rarely regret runs that you did.

Anyway, back to the session last night.  It was 6x1K loops, with approximately 200m jog recovery where on each loop you're supposed to push yourself hard but maintain control.  On my last loop, our club 10K record holder (Tommo, who was on his 7th loop) caught me up and dragged me along which really pushed me.  It's interesting, as he took one look at me and just said "relax your arms, mate" which really helped.  It's hard to describe (and I don't know if it's just in my mind), but I seemed to "flow" a bit easier from consciously relaxing my arms.  I'll have to remember this for my other runs, especially ones where I am pushing myself hard.

Also, looking at my splits (I remembered to hit the lap button at the start and end of each loop) I was quite a bit quicker following Tommo.  I'm not saying I could have done that speed on each of the previous 5 loops because I was absolutely shattered after that 6th one.

Split   Time     Distance     Av Pace

1         4:10.7 0.59           7:04
2         4:11.5 0.61           6:55
3         4:12.4 0.60           6:59
4         4:09.7 0.60           6:54
5         4:10.7 0.59           7:02
6         3:53.4   0.61           6:24

I ran back to the club house with Tommo and it was interesting chatting with him.  He has just turned  40 (so has just entered into the MV40 category) and holds various club records from when he was 23 etc.  However, last weekend he ran a 10K and was just 13 seconds off of his PB for the 10K (set when he was 23).  He reckons he is going to break his PB this year.  He is also gunning for the MV40 records in half and full marathon as well.  What a cracking achievement!