Tempo Racing

Well, another good day at the running office! This morning, on the way down to the tempo race workout, I tried to talk myself into skipping the workout, running an easy 7 instead, or maybe just doing the tempo at a relaxed 8:00/mile pace. See, for me the demons come before the runs, not always during the run. Anyway, I was fairly beaten up from W-W-W-Wilke on Monday, with some stiff hips, but I was there, out of the car, so I guess I had to run.

Gilbert was in a fun mood, telling all those who skipped Wilke that they had to go and meet him over there for it today while the rest of us ran tempo. The reaction from those folks was priceless. Gilbert said it was a joke, but emphasized that Wilke is a big-time workout, and shouldn't be skipped. The conditions were pretty good today, temps around 57 degrees, with a fine mist coming down sporadically. The nice and easy 1.2 mile warmup came and went, and by the time the drills were done, I was feeling pretty good. A bit heavy-legged, perhaps, but nothing hurt, so I suppose I had to give it a good effort after all. :-)

G gave us some pre-race tips, mainly for some of the newer Gazelles, repeating the old "80% effort" mantra, telling us a negative split was a key, and suggesting 10K pace plus 15 seconds as a good target pace. That's all well and good, but I'll stick with our joke of 4 miles tempo at 5K pace for a mental target. A few more words, and we were off!

Kenny ran with us today, sort of casually, but that still put him out in front of me, along with maybe 5 other people. I settled in with a pack of about 6 runners, tucked in behind Christina and some other folks. I was looking to hit the first mile feeling fairly comfortable, and succeeded with that goal. After we crossed the footbridge there, I eased around the folks I was with, and from that point on, I was running alone.

I did a good job of picking up the pace for mile 2, and hit the turnaround at a time that gave me a shot at my tempo PR of 28:57. As I headed back, I noted that Rachel was within striking distance of me, so I couldn't ease up just yet. After the turnaround, I stopped looking at my watch, going strictly by feel. I pushed when I felt like it, and did some micro-recoveries when needed to get back in order. As I made the corner at Point Neff, I thought I heard footsteps right behind me, so I picked it up a little more. On the footbridge with just a mile left, I glanced back, and saw Rachel close enough that she had a shot at running me down. After all the work invested in the tempo already, I really didn't want to give it up in the homestretch, and I'm not sure how I could have reacted had she caught up with me. So, I pushed even harder.

Now, since I wasn't looking at the watch anymore, I had no idea of how fast we were (or were not) going, but I knew that I felt like I was working hard at it today. It was sure nice to count down those 1/4 mile markers on the trail in that last mile! I wasn't looking back anymore, and I didn't hear those footsteps, but I kept the hammer down all the way to the line just in case. It was with great relief that I crossed the finish line, and then I was very happy to see my time. Rachel came across pretty soon after, and I thanked her for pushing me along. Competition does interesting things to you...

The numbers: 7:30, 7:09, 7:06, 6:44. 28:29, a big 30 second PR, and a full minute faster than 3 weeks ago for this same workout! 7:07/mile average pace. I've also never had a mile split like that 6:44 final mile, either. I guess things are going pretty well for me this fall training season.

After standing around a bit, we formed up for some easy cooldown running, maybe a half mile or so, and then we did striders (I got 5 of them before Gilbert called us over). G was excited about how we all did today, and there were a lot of times within a minute of me, so it was a compact finishing scrum. Maybe some of those folks will join our group on Saturday for the longer run?

For the day, just under 7 miles total. I did the full stretching with Lisa, and that was a day.