Kenyan Fartlek

Kenyan session yesterday at running club and after a mile of warm up we got into it. It was just Haftu, Jasper, Ciara and I training. I'm the only one not going to Nationals so a bit jealous, but Cheyne seems to think next year is the year for everyone. To tell you all about the guys and girls going from my club here it is. Haftu is in the U16 age group although he is bottom age of that category which means he will be racing kids almost a year older than him. He moved to Australia from Ethiopa about 3 years ago and improved his running amazingly. He's been training with Cheyne for about 2 years and has a pb for 3000m of 9:25. He was pretty disappointed with his time at Victoria Juniors and really wants to race well at Nationals. Jasper is in the U15 age group, but is top age. He is racing both the 1500m and 3000m at nationals as he has run qualifying times for both. Big contender for a top 3 place in Australia with a huge win in the 3000m at Vics. Ciara is in the U15 age group as well, but is a 400m and 800m runner with some unbelievable pb's. 58s for 400m and 2:16 for 800m. Another big contender for a top 3 place as she won the victori title for 400m. Chris is same age as me and Cheyne's first runner to join the squad. He is going to Nationals for 3000m and hopes to run sub 9 minutes for this race. His pb at the moment is 9:09. Nationals are this month now so we are all hoping for some good times. So back to the session. Kenyan Fartlek is 2 minutes easy, 2 minutes hard and we did this 6 times, then 1 minute easy, 1 minute hard 6 times again. Haftu and I rotated the lead while Jasper and Ciara sat on behind. Felt really good going quite quickly at around 3:05 pace. We kept this up until the 4th rep when Jasper went harder as he was doing 4 reps instead of 6 like Haftu and I. We stuck with him, but it took a bit more out of us. Hurting now but we kept pushing in not letting the pace dip below 3:06 pace for the last 2. 5 minute break before getting into the 1's. Slow on the first one at about 3:18 pace before stepping it back up to sub 3:05. Pushed harder as you are working half the time, managing to go sub 3 minute pace for a few reps. We continued to rotate the lead hurting a lot more, but we pulled through going at around 2:45 pace for the last rep. Really good session, feeling great about training more. Haftu was stoked as well, with pace and distance. 11.3km all up, good stuff.