By Flt Lt Rebecca Screech

Monte Gordo offers excellent running for the middle and longer distance competitor.  The Dunamar apartments are situated on a long and clean beach, which has a level and not too soft area by the water, perfect for any type of running.  Adjacent to the beach are acres of woodland laced with man made tracks.  These tracks lend themselves to any distance up to about 10 miles if all the loops and combinations of loops were followed.  The woodland tracks also lead to the stadium and running track just over 1.5 miles away.  The 10 day training week has offered up a variety of sessions for the middle/distance running with every member of group offering up their ideas and these sessions being adapted to suit the 800m, steeplechase and marathon runner.

The beach, woodland tracks and running track have been used for intervals, fartlek and recovery sessions and the quiet well pavemented roads in the area have provided the ideal ´long run".  As an example, one of the bigger sessions we attempted was a pyramid session, with efforts ranging from 1 to 4 mins, on the beach with 2 minutes recovery.  All in all, even though the middle/distance group members compete in a varying range of distances the flexibility of the running surfaces has provided excellant training and learning opportunities for all as well as a few tanned faces.