Best Tempo Run Yet....

I hate tempo runs... hate them.. hate them... hate them... those who've followed my progress through the FIRST plan know that they came close to de-railing me a few times. I just couldn't handle the long period of pain, without the incentive of crowds, competition, water stops and cool t-shirts.

When I switched up my tempo paces from the FIRST plan (6:50-7:05 for most runs, though some were 7:20) to tempo runs from Fitzgerald's Brain Training Program (7:08), everything started to get a lot better. And when I started to ease into my first mile of tempo (rather than flooring the gas) that helped a lot, too.

Today, in a breezy hard rain, I had my best tempo run yet - after a 7:41 mile warm-up, I ran the next 4 in 7:08 - 7:12 - 7:02 - 6:59. The last mile had a big hill and I wanted to cool down the last quarter mile or so, but I still finished that mile in 7:28. Best part? I'm not even wiped out. I feel good and fresh.

Sunday calls for a 13 mile run @ 7:26 pace (marathon pace)... I've decided to do this one at home on the streets and since it's 7 miles less than the loooong runs, I get to sleep in an extra hour and still be home around 10am (which is about the time the kids are fully awake, dress and wondering how their attention-starved souls will be fed). Woohoo - that'll be cool.

Starting to get really ready for this here run -- two of my co-workers are running the Marine Corp Marathon this weekend and I'm a little jealous -- only because they get to conquer their dragons first. I'm glad I picked a small, local marathon for mine because large crowds and loud bands startle me. :)

Comments

  1. Eric Gervase8:19 PM

    Ahh... confess.. You really want to be at MCM. :)

    No, I'm sure you don't. But, we're about to finish it off. Can't wait to see how this all goes. I'll tell you all about it on Tuesday

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:38 PM

    Congratulations on conquering the tempo run! I think it is one of the best workouts around if you're looking to improve your race times.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The gun in my basement.

Image
In my basement, I have a safe. And in that safe, under expired passports and birth certificates, there's a gun. It's unloaded. Hasn't been loaded in probably twenty years, and yet every time I take it out, I check to make sure. If you're a gun nerd, it's a 9 shot .22 revolver. On this website , it says that "it is true that many people have been killed by a .22 LR in the course of history," but the writer concludes that this weapon is a bad choice for self defense. I didn't buy it for self defense. I didn't even buy it. It was my father's and after he died, my mother gave it me, along with an Elgin watch he'd worn for years. The watch was weathered and worn and I took it to be restored. The jeweler refused, saying it was worthless. Two decades later, the watch is still in my jewelry box. There's no need for it to be locked up. I have no idea if this gun is in my possession legally. No idea if my father had a permit for it, or w...
Read more

Happy D-Blog Day, Uh, I Guess...

So according to diabetics blog-wide, today is D-Blog Day, the day when those of us affected by diabetes are supposed to blog about it. Or draw awareness to diabetes... Or something like that. I'm really a bad poster child for the disease. Not because I'm not in great control (actually, I am), but because I've just never been bothered by the disease so much. Red sums it up well in Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." So if living means three blood sugar tests a day, so be it. If living means being hooked up to an insulin pump, go to it. That being said, I feel for anyone with diabetic kids... I'm a tough guy about the disease. I wouldn't be if my kids had it. If either of my kids had diabetes, I'd be screaming about the politicians who are spending money on wars instead of research, and I'd be yelling about the schools that make it difficult to be a diabetic in the classroom. But my kids don't have diabetes, so instead I ...
Read more

The Bright Side

“ And if you ever get scared, look on the bright side: You’ve got a new life.” – Amos Lee Last month, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Since then, I’ve tried to write this essay a few times. The first attempt followed a narrative arc rife with suspense, with a few years of frustrating doctors’ visits, mysterious symptoms that came and went and the all-around sentiment that the batteries that powered my body were no longer able to sustain a charge or be fully refueled at the end of the day. But if you Google Lyme disease, you realize there’s nothing unique about that story. In fact, the reality that my own diagnosis came only two years after all of this started makes this a much shorter story than it is for many. The theme of the second version was more pitiful, tinged with regret about what this had taken from me over the past two years and what it might take in the future. But honestly, that one didn’t get far at all. If there’s a good time for something like ...
Read more