.. But I WANT heatstroke ... 10 x 500m

I really wanted to run in the sunshine ... but today was a speed session. So off into the small dark box of a gym I went. It’s a nice gym, but when the weather is this good it seems wrong to be running inside. I could have been getting sunburn AND heatstroke outside. Instead, I was running in a small, sweaty humid box.

I picked a treadmill next to the window though so I could see what I was missing.

However, the whole point of today was a speed session not a sun tan. I work in the middle of a huge industrial estate – although there are nice parks, it’s not all bad – and there isn’t a flat piece of ground anywhere unless you count the main roads which are dotted with massive gateways for good vehicles. The equivalent of doing a speed session along these is like a form of Russian roulette but with trainers. And crazy mad-eyed courier drivers. And 44 ton articulated lorries.

Getting flattened isn’t a subscribed method of speed training. Although the fear of these huge juggernauts might speed me up, hitting one at speed would definitely slow me down.

So today’s session was on the treadmill.

I was aiming for a 10 x 500m at a 6 min/mile but what I didn’t realise at the time was that my maths didn’t work. I did the 500m at 15 km/h not the 16 km/h I should have done making it a 6:23 min/mile not a 6 min/mile.

AND I found it hard work. Bloody hell.

I ended up doing 5 x 500m at 15km/h on the treadmill with a 20 second break between each one and a 2 minute break between each set of 5.

Oh well. At least the session was done. Did my stretches like a good girl and went to get changed.

Back in the changing rooms, I realised that my gym bag was suspiciously empty. Yep. I’d forgotten my towel. In this tiny and busy changing room there was no way I could wander through to the showers and back naked without looking like a one of those women who was about to dry their bits with a hairdryer and neither could I dry off by doing the spaniel shake without offending people and possibly getting beaten to death by the scary muscley lady in the corner. AND there was no way I could go back to work without a shower after a speed session. I’m already known as the One That Runs and regarded suspiciously. That was fine. I didn’t want to be The STINKY ONE That Runs. That was NOT fine.

I grovelled to the lovely staff at the desk who wanted to help but who were stuck – the gym didn’t sell or hire towels. Then one of them had a moment of epiphany and found a towel from me from the massage room. I was warned that it might smell a bit of massage oil, but I didn’t care! I could have a shower! I returned to the changing rooms triumphantly carrying the big, fluffy – and suspiciously warm – towel and had my shower. Bliss.

And best of all, I could go back to work safe in the knowledge that the speed session was done and I wasn’t going to be known as The Stinky Runny One! Well not today, anyway.