Thursday morning I got back to my favorite run: tempo pace for 4 or 5 miles starting from the zero mark on the American River trail and going out and back.
This week it was 4 miles, for a total of 12 counting the warm up and cool down from my house. I probably ran it a little faster than my true tempo pace. All four miles were sub-6:00 and three of the four were under 5:55. By the end my heart rate was above 175, which is probably too high. But I have been doing a lot of these runs at slower than my tempo pace and below my threshold heart rate, so it felt good to push it past the limit a bit. I was spurred on by trailing some faster runners on the way out and then pacing a friend on the way back who is usually far faster than me but is recovering from an injury and working himself back into shape. I was not, in the end, feeling like I would puke, which is what one of my running partners warns is most definitely not the object of a tempo run. I actually felt OK and I felt strong on my cool down, when typically I feel terrible while running slow after a quality workout. So all in all good news. And a good prelude
to Clarksburg.
I will be running the 30K on Sunday and I now hope to do the entire thing at marathon pace, which I am hoping will be 6:28 to 6:30. If I do that and it feels decent, I will plan to stick with that for the rest of my training and at CIM.
BTW, here is another source for finding your tempo pace based on recent race performances.
This week it was 4 miles, for a total of 12 counting the warm up and cool down from my house. I probably ran it a little faster than my true tempo pace. All four miles were sub-6:00 and three of the four were under 5:55. By the end my heart rate was above 175, which is probably too high. But I have been doing a lot of these runs at slower than my tempo pace and below my threshold heart rate, so it felt good to push it past the limit a bit. I was spurred on by trailing some faster runners on the way out and then pacing a friend on the way back who is usually far faster than me but is recovering from an injury and working himself back into shape. I was not, in the end, feeling like I would puke, which is what one of my running partners warns is most definitely not the object of a tempo run. I actually felt OK and I felt strong on my cool down, when typically I feel terrible while running slow after a quality workout. So all in all good news. And a good prelude
to Clarksburg.
I will be running the 30K on Sunday and I now hope to do the entire thing at marathon pace, which I am hoping will be 6:28 to 6:30. If I do that and it feels decent, I will plan to stick with that for the rest of my training and at CIM.
BTW, here is another source for finding your tempo pace based on recent race performances.
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