Yeah, feeling pretty good again

A little taste of Spring these last 2 days has put a smile on my face, though I know the brief respite from winter is going to be snatched away again. Yesterday in my lunch break I bought a sandwich and ate it by the Yarra, here is a piccie I took, it was the view to the boat sheds from my park bench. Today's running schedule was for a easy(ish) 5Km this morning then a session with the training group tonight. This mornings run was 5.9 Km at 5:15 pace, brisk morning but it held the promise of a lovely day so it was thoroughly enjoyable. Though I was plagued with a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. Sure enough I unpack my bag for my shower and I forgot my towel, bugger, so I had to try off with a handful of paper towel, which was surprisingly effective :-) tonight's session was relatively easy because much of the squad are heading north for the City to Surf of the weekend. We did a seeded relay in teams of 2 based on running speed, fastest with slowest and so on. My partner was a guy (Martin? Steve? shit I am so bad with names it is embarrassing, I am not rude or inconsiderate, I just have a dreadful memory) and we agreed to run the inside track to make it easy to meet. The "A" runners copped the Anderson St clockwise direction and us "B" runners got the anti-clockwise route. The idea was to run out, meet, tag, turn around and head back. The winner being the first team to finish reasonably close together. Funny, it was only a training session but put me in a competitive position and I get white line fever, it felt no different to lining up for a proper race. So off we went, a bit tricky to judge your pace when you don't know when you are stopping and I think I went out a bit hard, I also had a gradual incline for part of the way. Still I think I did quite well and made it all the way up past the Shrine to just past Dallas Brooks Drive, probably about 1.5 Km to make 3Km all up. Found my partner, IN THE DARK mind you, a good effort I say and turned around. Some of the other girls had not made it as far so I challenged myself to try and pass them, which I did. The best bit!!! Heading down the straight I could see my partner heading right for me, so I backed of just a tiny bit and we managed to finish in almost perfect sync, beautiful :-). All up just over 16 minutes and first place. We even had prizes, appropriately enough a little box of mini choc bars. Reminds me of year 10 PE when I "won" a Crunchie bar for being the first girl back in a 3Km X-C around the school grounds. It stands out in my memory because we rarely had sweets or chocs in our house growing up and I reckon I made that Crunchie last 4 days. Anyway, a bit of a long description of a simple session, but I just wanted to get across how much fun it is. I mean speed work sessions can be damn hard so it helps to have a bit of fun with it.