Return to Tempo Race/Run

For various reasons, I missed the November edition of the tempo run/race, so it's been a while since I've toed the line for this workout with the Gazelles. The last one was just 3 days after the Pervasive 10 Miler, and we were all a bit tired still from the weekend race. Still, I scored a PR for this workout at that time, dipping under 30:00 for the first time to finish in 29:54. I was pleased with that run back then. This morning, on a perfect day for running, 40 degrees, crisp and clear, we gathered to do the tempo again. Gilbert had called for a 2 mile warmup and 2 mile cooldown, so several of us arrived at 5:45 am for that purpose. Turns out, he intended the Thursday gang to meet at 6:00. No worries. I was nervous about this workout, and had a strong urge to just get back in the car and go home. But, once I saw some of my old Thursday gang arrive, I got in better spirits. Frank and Brian joined me as "guest runners" from the M/W gang.

Pretty relaxing 2 mile warmup rolled by at around a 9:30/mile clip, and then we drilled. I got a chance to talk with Pete while we were doing drills, and that's always nice to get caught up with old friends. Amy and Shannon were there, and we laughed about the race being "on," but I truly didn't know how I'd feel until we took off. Gilbert gave us the usual pep talk about negative splits, and then we were blasting away on the trail.

I found myself in wide open space behind Frank's group of runners ahead of me, with no one running with me. I felt comfortable with the pace, though, so I just stayed with what I was doing. It was strange to be able to see those faster people just ahead, and I had to fight off some panic that I was going too fast. As I crossed the footbridge at the one mile mark, I took a quick glance behind me, to see if I spotted Shannon or Amy chasing me down. When I saw only darkness, I returned my focus on the road ahead. So far, so good. Later review showed my first mile at 7:33, but I didn't know that this morning in the dark.

In mile 2, I caught up with Marcy, which surprised and then scared me. She's so much faster than I am, and I got nervous about going by her. Still, I guess she was having an off day, and so I moved on. It was really cool to see how close I was to Alex and Frank ahead of me as we made the turnaround at the 2 mile mark. I knew I was on a good pace, maybe a record pace for me, but all I saw at the turn was my mile split, which was 7:18. Again, review later showed a 2 mile split of 14:51, more or less on my old PR pace for this run.

As I made the turn and headed back to the finish, I was very interested to see how much of a lead I might have on Shannon and Amy, so I presume that I picked it up for that reason. I guessed that I had maybe a quarter mile on Shannon, and I missed Amy. Now, I needed to kick it down so that I wouldn't get caught by my two pace partners today. I focused on keeping a steady effort, counting down the quarter mile markers as I went. I crossed the footbridge again at the 3 mile mark, and took a quick glance at my split time in the somewhat brighter conditions. I saw a 6:56, which was one of those Up/Down sort of things. It was the first time I've had a sub-7:00 split on a tempo run, which is cause for excitement. However, since it was in the unknown territory, it was also scary. Had I blown it by going too fast? Could I hang on?

Again, as I crossed the bridge, I glanced back, and didn't see anyone chasing me down. From there on out, it was time to have eyes only for the road ahead. I picked off runners on the trail as I steamed home, and continued to press the pace. It was obviously a good day for me, and I didn't want to blow it by dropping way off the pace in the last mile. I just thought about running form as I neared the finish at Auditorium Shores, and ran all the way through the finish line. Final mile split was 7:10, overall time 28:57, a tempo PR of nearly a full minute from two months ago. Huge negative split in second half of 14:06, compared to 14:51 in first half. Needless to say, I was very happy with my running day! Overall pace 7:14/mile.

After a minute or two of collecting my wits (and getting my breathing somewhat back to normal), I grabbed some water at the coolers, and then put my vest back on before I started getting chilled. Frank and I then headed out for the prescribed 2 mile cooldown. It was nice to cruise along and let the body settle down after the hard effort of racing.

I checked out Frank's new ride and Richard's repaired ride (they did a fantastic job of repairing the sheet metal damaged on Richard's car), and then it was time to get going. For the day, 8.7 miles total. Cool. I'll do the gym workout tomorrow, after a possible easy run in the morning.