Saturday - 6km tempo, 5 x 3 minutes (off 2 minutes)

I joined Run Crew this morning at King George's Park, Rozelle. Another mammoth session, and it was hot and humid. The one down side of the Bay Run is the lack of shade. Definitely felt this on the back half of the 6km tempo run. I must say that I have really learnt the 'art' of running these at the appropriate pace. The old tendency was to race/time trial these efforts, bought on no doubt by some inter-squad rivalry during the Sweat days. I couldn't care less now, and try to run these on feel - using pace as feedback at the end of the effort. Anything under 3:19's these days for a tempo effort is too fast. So my 3:17's this morning was slightly too quick, but it is getting better. Gary and Ben staggered the start, so we all ended up running solo. We regrouped before starting the second part of the session - 3 minute efforts running loops around some of the local ovals. We managed two reps on the first oval before getting told off by the local baseball team (apparently we were ruining their pitch by running on it). So we kindly (after they threatened us and throw a ball at Matt) moved to the next oval across the road to finish the rearming three reps. Can never trust the Garmin when running laps, as it changes dramatically depending on whether you run clockwise or anticlockwise. Nevertheless, I clocked 2:53's to 2:55's (not accurate) running the first three clockwise, and 3:13's for the final two running anticlockwise (not accurate either). Just tried not to let Matty & Keith get too far in front, which I managed somewhat successfully - so very satisfied. A nice 5km cooldown, the highlight of which involved bumping into Hoey and Molly. Very happy to finally meet the famous Molly, arguably the worlds fittest dog (she runs with Michael, who runs for a long time). Just shy of 21km all up including warm-up and cool-down. Thinking of all those brave souls out there in the Blue Mountains this morning racing the Six Foot Track!