The last interval

My outlook on training has changed dramatically since India. I came back and wanted to get back into training straight away (although this turned out to be impossible due to the ITB issues). One of my clients asked me the other day about my plans for 2012, and when I told them about the 24 hour race and The Wall they asked what would happen if I was in the middle of nowhere and couldn't finish. I quickly said, "Oh God, I'll DEFINITELY finish", which later made me realise I really do have a totally different mindset now.

This has also crossed over to my training. Each session I do I find I'm pushing myself harder than ever before. I get to the point that something hurts and then push a little bit further, thinking that everything up to that point has just maintained the fitness I have and the only way to improve is to carry on when it really hurts. It's like when you do intervals... The first interval gets you into the session, the second interval hurts towards the end, but it's the last interval that does anything for you by way of improved fitness, because that's the one that you have to push yourself through. That may not be technically true, but it is the way my brain is working at the moment and it's quite a motivational way of getting through the tough stuff.

Today I went up to 8.50mm pace for my 10 minute intervals and found it only took around 2 minutes to fully recover. The last interval was tiring in the last 2 minutes but was fine apart from that and I even finished the session feeling like I could have gone out for another run. I am presuming from that that I could maybe push a little more next week, so we will see how that one pans out when I try it. I'm so pleased my fitness is coming back quicker than it did last year, as that was pretty tough going back then. I'm looking forward to tomorrow as I get to have my first go at heavy weighted walking. I'm to use 15KG to start and only do 15 minutes... Sounds so easy doesn't it, but I have no concept up to now about how hard it will actually be!