Quote Originally Posted by IainR View Post
That's the beauty of being in a club/group of good runners..

It was something we never had in North Wales really, well with Menai for a bit..

But over in the states I've had a group in Texas, and elite track clubs in Boston and Philly to train with..

You turn up, tired leggy.. you chat with everyone, have a laugh, do a few miles warm up, all your stretching, which you'd (I'd) never do properly on my own, blast out your reps, and the way the US people are it is all incredibly positive... none of the UK put downs.. lots of encouragement, then you do your cool down, more chats and a laugh.. 8-10 mile sessions, normally a good 3-4 miles of hard efforts.. really enjoyable session.

In TX we had a group of 20-30, from 13-50 year olds, all standards and we'd just divide into groups, we had runners from olympic marathon standard down to people doing 2 hr halfmarathons.. so the full range.. incredible sessions with a great coach.
I used to be in a club in the UK but we never did any specific sessions in the club, although if you wanted to do some intervals there'd always be a faster runner that would help. Since moving to France I run on my own, with the very occasional run with my partner.

Even though I have to self motivate I find that I really enjoy speedier sessions. I really love gritted teeth sustained hard efforts up hill.