The Thursday Gathering

Today saw an unexpectedly large turnout from work for Thursday intervals. In additional to the usual suspects: Chris G, Dave, Guy and me, Chris brought along Nick (a.k.a. Handles) and Guy invited along another Chris (distinguished from Chris G by his superior height). We also bumped into Michael ‘Mauler’ in the gym who, inspired by the good weather, asked if he could join us (well we did say we were only running two miles oops!). Anyway I haven’t been out running with The Mauler for a good three or four years and he reliable informed me that was the last time he ran – I foresee aching legs tomorrow. And then the good bit – Michael presses a button on his trainers to convert them from gym to running mode. Dead cool or gimmick – I’ll let you decide.

So it was the seven of us that made our way to the start on the far side of St Katharine’s Dock. Nick was looking dangerous dressed all in black. While tall Chris came close to letting the side down by wearing a cotton t-shirt but redeemed himself admirably with a pair double mirrored, wrap around, thermo nuclear resistant shades.

It was pretty obvious the longer reps I had been planning wouldn’t work with such a mixed ability group so we plumped for 6 sets of 3 minute reps and 2 minutes recovery. Chris G was clearly not awake for the first rep and I comfortably led from start to finish. This wasn’t to be repeated and as time went on I began to struggle. We lost Nick briefly at the end of rep 2 but luckily the search party found him off-course just in time for the start of the next rep. On the 5th rep I wasn’t able to follow Chris’s surge as he overtook the newbies but was able to maintain the gap once he slowed back to normal pace. I was dead on rep 6 and didn’t even bother to trying to follow Chris. Instead I ended up racing Dave and Guy, both of whom I should add had a considerable start on me. For the record Guy beat me by about the size of his beer belly (yes that far!). Tall Chris did himself proud while Nick and the Mauler seemed happy to direct most their efforts towards chatting. They were also paying no attention to the route back and for the second time in one session Nick took a wrong turning. Tut, tut – must pay more attention.