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Thursday 13 June 2013

Juneathon day 13 - social running

Today I ran at lunchtime, 5k with my friend Oliver. Running with someone else is fairly unusual for me. I'd say I probably run 90% of my runs on my own and certainly so far in Juneathon I think I've run all but two alone. Oliver is training for the British 10k (which I have now signed up for too). We ran together a couple of times this time last year so I know his natural pace is significantly faster than mine and I'm grateful to him for sticking with me rather than haring off like a rat up a drainpipe leaving me in his dust (slightly mixed metaphors there but I think it works).

We ran a steady 5k at what, for me, is quite close to my top pace for that distance. The big benefit of doing this with someone else is being able to check that what I think is conversational pace actually is conversational pace. With the best will in the world it's hard to replicate the feeling of a real conversation when you're running on your own. Even though the pace was fairly quick we chatted all the way around and it never felt difficult to maintain the conversation. This makes me think that I may be holding back a little on the pace and there could be another faster gear to be explored. In the last kilometre we ramped it up a little and ran a few hundred metres down a long straight in Regent's Park at something like 4.30 per k pace. That felt fast but doable, and even at that pace I was still able to talk although not quite as easily as at 6.30 per k. All in all a good run in pleasant company. More of this, please!

Day 13 5k in 30.05
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