Serious

If I'm going to be a a serious runner I guess I'd better start some serious training! I knuckled down this week and finally made it out to a Thursday morning threshold run. I'd never done a threshold run before, so wasn't sure what to expect.
I was off to a *great* start. I thought the start time was 5.30am (not 5.15am) and had barely parked my car when all the runners took off... huh?
Luckily I recognized a fellow Tuesday morning sprinter who is about my pace. I stuck to her like glue as she told me the game plan. 1k warm up, then 5k out doing a 5.45 pace, and returning back at a "faster" pace (around 5.20).
I tried not to let myself think about the fact that I haven't run that far since 2012! And as I was doing my best not to think, it started raining. Not heavy rain, but a definite shower.
Nope, not a great start to my first threshold run at all.
Fortunately my friend was there to keep me occupied. Our Tuesday speed session is not conducive to much talking, as I am limited to talking in the recoveries which are not very long and always broken up by the reps (running is funny that way). But here we had 12 whole km's to chat! And so chat we did.
It was lovely to run at a steady but strong pace and hold a conversation. We reached the 5k turn around easily, and started picking it up for the way back. The rain had happily stopped and I was doing great until around the 7.5k mark (really, 8.5k if you count the warm-up). That's when I started to fatigue. But with only 2.5k to go it felt silly to slow down. So my friend and I pushed on. The talking became a little more scattered as our breathing picked up. In the last km I was really struggling. The pathway narrowed so I happily settled in behind my friend and let her set the pace - I just focussed on keeping up.
We finished the 10k threshold in a total time of 56min something. Wow! Considering my pb in the 10k is 54.00, to finish a training run in 56min something has me pretty happy.
Seriously awesome!