The CTC this month is an interesting on tactically. With just the fastest and slowest to count for your score it is fairly obviously that you want 7 reps at exactly the same distance and one faster. With that in mind the next consideration is that for every second slower you go on the first 7 reps, you only need to go one second quicker on the final rep. Up to a point most people will be able to go more than a second quicker on the final rep by going a second slower on the first 7. So the key, in my opinion, is finding the balance point where you’re effectly doing a strong warm up for 7 reps then a flat out sprint for the 8th.
For my first attempt, because I was swapping the session out for a very similar session of 600m reps at 1:40 pace I decided for training effect I would do 1:40 pace (or really 601m to make it just under 1:40 pace as it looks better on paper) for the first 7 then sprint the last.
CTC 8 x 2mins / 2min rest:
601m / 1:39.8 / 31
601m / 1:39.8 / 30
601m / 1:39.8 / 30
601m / 1:39.8 / 30
601m / 1:39.8 / 31
602m / 1:39.6 / 31
601m / 1:39.8 / 31
649m / 1:32.4 / 35
16mins = 4857m / 1:38.8 / 31
Slowest + faster = 601+649 = 1250m
I could have done the last rep faster if I’d properly sprinted it, but I can tell that this isn’t the optimum pattern yet. If I went a second slower for the first 7 reps I would definitely be able to go more than a second quicker on the last. Where will the balance point come? Well, I think I could do 1:45 for the first 7 and be pretty much completely fresh for the last, and do a 1:27 paced final rep to beat this. But without any fast sprint work I think that would be about the extreme for a 1250m+ for me at the moment. So probably somewhere around 1:43 / 1:44 might yield the best overall result on current form.
Interestingly this gave me the exact same result as Wizzo, yet his set average was around 2.5seconds quicker. I could not do the 8 reps all at 1:36.4 or faster as he did, and so a flat paced effort is definitely not the best method for me.
