Tempo Race

I had a restless night of sleep last night, and so despite the glorious running weather this morning (50 degrees, crisp and clear), I wasn't feeling up to a big effort for today's scheduled 4 mile tempo run/race. I seem to always have a medium level of dread for this workout, just that you know it's going to be consistently tough for around 30 minutes. Somehow, doing big numbers of repeats at fast pace doesn't seem nearly as daunting as the tempo race. Anyway, the rather small crowd (like Wilke, this workout draws the smallest numbers of Gazelles...funny, that) rolled through the 2.2 miles of warmup, and drills were drilled. Those folks running the 10 Miler on Sunday (Frank and a few others) left earlier for a 7 mile fartlek workout as usual, and the Boston people had some other special workout. That left maybe 12 of us for the tempo race. No, it's not a "tempo run" as defined in a zillion running articles and books, but a hard 4 miler aiming for a negative split coming home. We always joke that Gilbert tells us to run the 4 mile tempo run at 5K race pace, and sometimes it seems that's what we're doing. My "PR" for this run is 28:57, set a long time ago in the fall. I hoped to be somewhere in that range, under 30 minutes.

We toed the line, and Gilbert sent us off with little preamble. There was a large group of beginner Gazelles there, and they cheered us as we took off on our journey. That was actually kind of cool. Anyway, despite my protestations to the contrary, I ran away from Amy and Brian early, and chased down Jennifer for the first mile. I caught and passed Jennifer, and hit the one mile mark at a fairly relaxed 7:57. I was running totally alone now, with no one in the Gazelles to chase, but I kept pushing the pace a little more, hitting the turnaround with a 7:26 second mile and a 15:23 halfway mark. Not bad considering I was feeling off my game before we started. As I headed back, I noted that Brian was closest to me, and I had maybe a 60-70 yard lead on him.

I picked it up a little more during mile 3, and was closer to a hard run now. I still felt okay, but I knew I was really running during this mile. I started playing the mileage countdown game here, and used other runners on the trail as targets to chase. Anything to distract me a little. Anyway, I hit the mile 3 mark with a 7:04 split, which is really good for me. I did not look back, but during the later stages of mile 4, I thought I heard footsteps behind me, and picked it up even more in the last quarter mile, for a tiny finishing kick. It was cool to see a 7:11 last mile split once I crossed the line, for a total 29:38 time, 7:25/mile overall pace. Second half was 14:15, a big negative split, and I held pace well over the last two miles. Good job! Turns out, Brian had closed on me a little during the last two miles, and he ended up just 3 or 4 seconds behind me. That was a big PR for him today. He's getting really strong.

This was my second fastest time ever for this run, and that was great to see. If Gilbert's usual idea is correct, then 7:25 pace should be a target for the Capitol 10,000 in a few weeks.

5 x 100m striders later, we were done. I hung out and talked with Frank, Jason, and Gilbert afterwards, and it was generally a good day at the running office. I felt fine on my third consecutive day of running (for the first time since before Freescale), and all systems seem to be "go" for me. Except for returning to gym work, I've been a good Gazelle since Freescale, so if I'll just go to Gold's tomorrow or Friday, it'll be a great week of exercise.