Playing with speed

Today I decided it was time to work on the thing that has let me down in the past few races. I have been producing some great performances (for me anyway!) up until the final stretch of the race where I fail to capitalise on the lead I have over my peers. Runners who I have passed in the race have come back to haunt me at the finish. It has really frustrated me. I could have been 5th on Saturday had I had a good finish. To counter this, it was therefore time for some Fartlek consisting of 4 200m bursts per mile, with 3 and a half miles worth. This would leave me with 14 x 200m efforts followed by 200m recovery.
The legs are still feeling the effects of Saturday but still felt much better than yesterday. The times I churned out are far from impressive for 200m, but they were easily fast enough for the last 200m of a race which is what the plan was. The terrain I was sprinting on was also very similar to that at the end of a Cross Country Race; flat and muddy. So forgetting about the times, which to a track runner would be laughable, I feel I will have definitley got something out of today's efforts which produced the following times:
1. 39 secs
2. 37 secs
3. 38 secs
4. 37 secs
5. 35 secs
6. 36 secs
7. 35 secs
8. 37 secs
9. 38 secs
10.35 secs
11.36 secs
12.35 secs
13.35 secs
14.36 secs
ALL TIMES TO NEAREST SECOND!
So as you can see, times varied from 35 seconds to 39 seconds. I felt to get into more of a rythm as the session went on and this is possibly why the times became more consistent. Either way, considering my legs aren't fully recovered, I feel fairly assured with what I have seen today. Hopefully I can produce something like this at the end of a race when it really matters now!
Along with a 1 mile warm up and half a mile warm down, the daily total reaches a pleasing 5 miles and after yesterday's 6, brings the weekly total to 11 after only 2 days. I am well on track to hit the 30 at the moment! Wednesday will probably be some Intervals in Skipton Woods and then a nice steady run in the afternoon. I shall look forward to that and hopefully, after a day off, my legs will be fully recovered from Saturday. Dad bought me Lance Armstrong's autobiography today; inspiring stuff!