Tuesday - Mona Fartlek

I always get slightly nervous before this one, as I find it really shows where I am currently at fitness and performance-wise. So much so, I can predict my race times based on this session, and I mean course-specific race times. The bad news is that I am still a fair way off peak fitness. The good news is that I have made a significant improvement over the past few weeks (more so than I had thought). Warmed up along the beachfront to an amazing sunrise, with people everywhere who were assumably coming home from the dawn services. Did the session up at North Head, my local training ground. Took off hard, but always kept some in the tank. Although the session hurts like hell, the upside is that it is significantly shorter than my two longer 10k-pace sessions last week. Ended up with 5.84/5km (Garmin vs. Strava), or 3:24/5 min/km pace (Strava vs. Garmin). Nevertheless, just over 200m further than three weeks ago. Over the moon with that, but still know that I have to get to the point where I can comfortably go over six kilometers for the session. Even better is the fact that I am still seeing progress. A nice and easy cooldown back home for just over 15km all up. Still debating whether or not to race the Sydney 10 and/or the SMH Half Marathon. I think the race fitness will do me a world of good, but then again I hate racing when I am not running at close to my best.