Shortened Mona Fartlek (am) + 8km recovery (pm)

A weird one this morning. The plan was the dreaded Mona Fartlek. Convinced Scotty to come along, so the plan was to share the work - similar to Tuesday. We both reported feeling sore the few days after Tuesday, which was quite reassuring as it wasn't just me. Went out hard as usual, shared the lead throughout the first 10 minutes. At this point I could sense that Scotty was struggling a bit, as he wasn't as keen to take as many leads. I could also hear his breathing was slightly more laboured than mine - all good psychological cues! However, he pulled up short just before the stone arch - at about 4km. His left calf was tightening and he erred on the side of caution (good call). This left me completely solo for the start of the 30 second efforts. I really needed someone to take a lead at this stage. It was literally only a few meters before the 4.8km mark that I decided that that would do - both because I was coming back after an easy week, and in the back of my mind I didn't want to push it too far just when I was starting to come good and with the Sun Run next Saturday. Not bad in the end, finishing the 4.8km in 15:25, averaging 3:12's. Not as fast as Tuesday, but considering that I wasn't planning to stop then, coupled with the the fact that I spent an equal time floating as I did on the efforts (unlike Tuesday's 2:1 efforts to floats ration), it was by no means a bad effort. I doubt that I would have held that pace for the last four-and-a-half minutes of Mona Fartlek, but perhaps 3:14-15's was on the cards. Feel a bit disappointed now for stopping short, but better to play it safe than sorry. A nice easy long cooldown for 17km all up. Bumped into Macca and Barts (the latter was 30km's into his 30km long run) on the way back.

Got over my OCD tendencies for repeating the same course over and over again. Made up a brand new 8km loop! Very very very easy this afternoon, 4:48's at 120 beats. I'm getting better at slowing it down! Goal is to run tomorrow's long run at 4:15's - that would be a record for me in terms of slowness!