In a state of ecstasy!

Today was my best session for a very long time. I had 6 x 1k down on the schedule, another session recommended by good old Keith. He reckoned you should be able to 'hit your race pace 1k splits individually for a 10k easily in an interval session with 1 minute jog recovery, like bang bang. Your pace shouldn't fluctuate too much either, 2 or 3 seconds different between each rep max.' I thought a good target would be around the 3:40/km - 3:50/km was reasonable. This would give me a 10k time overall of 36:40 - 38:20. Although I've never done a 10k, I thought this was a reasonable estimate based on the race times I've seen people do of similar ability to myself. I do intend on doing a 10k sometime too despite my lack of love for road running. It's a real benchmark for the runner and if you meet a random runner, they ask you your 10k time to find out how good you are. It's a good thing to know!
Onto today's session anyway. The Garmin had sufficient battery this time thankfully, and I looked through the history to find a very similar session, over the same route I was going to do today had been done in January. The 6 reps gave paces of:
1. 3:49/km
2. 3.45/km
3. 3:47/km
4. 3:41/km
5. 3:44/km
6. 3:38/km
Today's were actually quite similar. There is a hill in every single one of the reps, which is quite rare for road running but there again there are lots of hills here in the Dales! Anyway, the hills are tough but I felt to cope pretty well and after a slow start felt to really come into my own and on the last 3 reps felt really strong! The paces were:
1. 3:50/km
2. 3:41/km
3. 3:47/km
4. 3:38/km
5. 3:40/km
6. 3:40/km
So, 4 of the 6 today were faster which is very pleasing and shows I'm in a good shape despite the lengthy lay off. The average pace today of 3:42/km would give me a 37 minute 10k which would be good if I could keep that pace up and I may even go faster in a race! Anyway, a great day and a nice rest tomorrow. Happy times!