"Tempo" Run...

This morning was in the mid-50's and overcast. Conditions that we'd love to have into May, but not likely. Anyway, I felt pretty good this morning, with only a slight twitch in my left hamstring still present. I felt a little heavy-legged after the weights yesterday, but I was game for the workout. We did an easy 1.2 mile warmup and then the drills. Frank was in Arizona, celebrating his birthday, so I hung out with Jan, Amy and Joseph. The workout today was the 4 mile tempo run, which is basically a time trial event. Gilbert keeps track of our times, and uses this as a gauge of our current fitness. Still calls it a tempo run, but it is far from that!

I intended to run it pretty relaxed, to push it but not to do it all out, since I'm still just less than 3 weeks since the marathon. Famous last words. At the gun, the crowd was off like greyhounds at the track. I was dead last going off the line. By the one mile mark, I had reeled in 4 or 5 people, had Jan with me, and kept Amy, Joseph and Shannon in sight ahead of me. First mile was 7:55, so I was doing what I thought I would do. Going out to the turnaround, Jan dropped back, and I was running in an open space in the pack. Second mile was 7:37. I was working pretty hard, but still not all out, I think. Right after the turnaround, Amy, Joseph and Shannon pushed the pace a bit, and suddenly, I was about 20 yards further back from them. I set a task of catching at least one of them over the last 2 miles, just to give myself something to do. I caught Shannon at the footbridge at the 3 mile mark, a split of 7:31. I had a good shot at a negative split. Running alongside Shannon, we just couldn't catch Amy or Joseph, and I crossed the finish with her for a final mile of 7:47. Total time 30:50, pace 7:43. My "PR" for this course is 30:20, so I was about 7 seconds/mile slower today. Not bad.

We did 4 striders after we finished, and then we did a session of Gilbert's form/balance drills. Those were a series of hopping and skipping and rhythmic form drills. Hard to explain, but they are known as the "TSCH, TSCH" drills with us, because of the sounds we're supposed to make in time with the drills. I actually did them pretty well today. My quads were dead after them, however, so I guess I was either doing them exactly right or I'm really tired, one or the other. Afterwards, I stretched with Jan, and we did 100 situps (4 sets of 25), 2x10 pushups, and 2 x 20 back raises, along with the standard stretching. Tomorrow, another cycle/weights session and then 10 miles on Saturday.