INTENSE sessions with less than ideal recovery tend to be the biggest stimulators of progress for me, despite how much I hate how they feel. 6 x 5 minutes off 3 minute recoveries at Down Grange in my Nike Zoom Marathoner's fits that particular bill perfectly. My legs felt fresh and pain free, relative to the last week of training, so much so that I'm actually looking forward to this afternoon's 4 mile recovery run. For personal future reference regards my improvement, I will now describe where I finished my repetitions relative to the rest of the field.

I finished in line with Darryl on the first 3 reps, but then he blasted the last 3. I finished ahead of Tom, the long haired 1500m guy, on the first 4 reps, but about 20-40m behind him on the last two, although I'd still covered the same distance. To paraphrase Barry, it was another debutant record for the workout by a significant distance.

Tune in later for more info on today's runs. Same bat-time, same bat-channel...