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Seems I had the wrong impression. Used to run for a club as a kid and you were almost expected to turn up every session. I guess adult clubs are more social and more relaxed. I'll definitely get myself down to one of them once I'm settled in Leeds. Googled it and already found a couple of clubs that look very friendly

Thanks for the feedback on the club situation everyone. I would like to, but like Bob, I don't know if I'd be willing to commit on a regular basis. Being told what to do and when to do it in terms of workouts might not be my cup of tea. Also, where I'm splitting my time between London and Loughborough, I don't know how worthwhile it would be. When I'm permanently living in Leeds from next month, I will probably give it a go then.

Tempo 5km for me today. Struggled to find any sort of rhythm and found it hard going to sustain a 7:15/mile pace at first. Got a bit easier as it went on though and ended up sustaining the pace for the full run. I've ran 18 miles and walked 14 miles in four days, which is a serious amount for me, which maybe explains why I felt a bit leggy today. Plan is to ease down over next two days, and then do a long run on Sunday

Coudn't recommend this any more if I tried:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.endomondo.android&hl=en_GB

The pro version (costs £1.50) is even better. All you could possibly ever want if you like to look at your statistics after a workout.

Thanks TOM, where it was the first one I did, I wasnt entirely sure how I would fare which explains the lack of consistency. Usually, I am pretty good at maintaining a standard pace, but the increase and decrease made it a bit harder for me to judge. I can tweak the settings so I get my split times in my ear so I can be sure I'm maintaining a good pace.

Thanks also for the advice Simon. To be completely honest, I had intended on running each 500m in 2mins, and was surprised to find at the end that I'd gone slightly quicker than that. When I say more intense, I meant keep the pace the same, but reduce the recovery time. Probably should have made myself clearer.

Bob: Glad to hear I'll have someone else to try to get to the 20min 5km with then. Although I found today difficult, I'll be honest that I knew I had a bit too much recovery time because I found almost fully recovered, waiting for the beep to up the intensity again. But I also found that I tired very quickly at the pace that I was running at. 

I guess its all about finding a session that works for me and that will come with time. Your session looks much better than mine, and probably slightly more enjoyable (if enjoyable is the word to describe interval training?).

Next week, I'll tweak mine in that I'll decrease the pace of my high intensity intervals, try to maintain a more consistent pace on the low intensity part, and decrease recovery time; in other words, mimic your workout from today!

Edit: Quick question.. Roughly what proportion of runners on this thread are members of a club? Just wondering.

Guess you'll have nothing to worry about then Bob. 

After an easy day yesterday, tried my legs out on a bit of interval training. I'm guessing everyone here has their own way of tracking their workout, probably through a Garmin or whatever, but Endomondo Pro (costs £1.50) is an absolutely awesome app, add doesnt seem to lack anything compared to far more expensive pieces of kit!

 Set it up so I could do 5x500m at a high(ish) intensity. One of my aims (apart from the HM) is to run a 5km close to 20mins. I find it harder over short distances, so this is probably quite a way away, but I'm hoping with an interval session a week, increasing the intensity steadily, I should get somewhere near that.

I didn't have my 500m splits after each one so wasn't entirely sure how quick they were. But I ended up with sub 2min for all five of them which was good. I was pretty tired after each one though, especially towards the end, I've never ran at 6:07/km pace before in my life!