I was a few seconds off the target 5 mins per km pace for 2 of my 3 7km runs last week but crucially I did manage to hit it on one of the 3 so under the terms of my self-devised CL210K programme I am allowed to continue to W2 and increase the distance to 8km. That is 5 miles for gawd's sake! what on earth am I thinking of?
I suspected I would struggle with the additional km so decided to experiment with a larger number of shorter running intervals with shorter walk-rests in between. I put the distance and target time into a little spreadsheet that I have devised and fiddled with the number & length of the rest intervals until it gave me a pace that seemed to make some sense and programmed that into my running app - 10x 3 mins @ 4:40 with 30 seconds walks in between with 5 minutes 'all-in' at the end.
Result = 8km in 39:55 - Hoorah!
All-in really was all-in though and I substituted 5 minutes of cooling down light exercise for 5 minutes of lying flat out on the grass verge gasping for breath, much to the consternation of a nearby cycle race marshal who came over to make sure I was still in the land of the living. My thanks to her for her concern...
Ah well, I can now take the next 2 W2 runs easy before moving on to 9km next week....