Tempo Race

This is a recurring theme, but for the first time in quite a while, I actually went to a Gazelles Tempo Run/Race. I must admit that this particular workout is one that is easy to convince yourself that you don't feel up to a hard run. But, in my continuing attempt to fully comply with the Gazelles Path To Marathon Goodness ("GaPaT MaG"), I took myself down to RunTex this morning for the big event. We did just a short warmup (1.2 miles), then drills, and it was time to get this party started. I was happy that my legs felt pretty great this morning after yesterday's gym visit and the Monday circuit. I felt pretty good almost immediately in the warmup, which was a relief.

Gilbert gave us a few words about the tempo run, including the "80% of your efforts" line, and promised us that although he was taking our times down, we shouldn't worry about whatever time we earned. This was to be a baseline for the long training season ahead. I smirked that we should sandbag the run in that case, but I knew that once we toed the line, I'd probably run pretty hard anyway.

And we were off! I settled into a front-of-the-midpack position with Brian, and we cruised the first mile in an open spot behind Anne, Brad and Marcy. I actually felt like we were running at something like 80% effort, but it was early. It's been a while since I've run a sustained hard effort, so I was a little nervous about really laying it out on the line this morning. We clicked off the first mile in a fairly nice 7:40, which was faster than I would have expected. Onward.

Brad pulled away ahead of us from Anne and Marcy, and by about the 1.25 mile mark, Brian and I caught up to them as well. Brian went on around them, but I tucked in with the girls for a few minutes, thinking that they are usually faster than I am. Still, it worked out that I eased ahead of them after a while, and I started tracking Brian again. He was about 20 yards ahead, and I just kept him in range for the rest of the run. It was cool seeing the front-runners on their return leg as we headed for halfway. I made the turn with a 7:45 second mile, and a 15:25 halfway split. Consistent, eh? Now, what did I have left for the second half?

I got a boost from seeing the rest of the Gazelles after the turnaround, and tried to maintain my form and speed. I think that's when I saw Alex coming the other way on his recovery run, too. Anyway, the third mile was all about maintaining the gap behind Brian, and monitoring how I felt. I definitely wanted to have a little something left for a last mile acceleration, and absolutely didn't want to stop and walk! There's something about counting down the mile markers in the second half of the tempo race that helps me mentally, too. It's nice to click off those quarter miles. I crossed back over the footbridge on the heels of a guy who I'd starting tracking in the last half of mile 3. Every time I'd push a little, it seemed he'd pick it up, too, so I just stuck with him for a while, as he was going about as fast as I wanted to go at that point. Mile 3 was 7:38, so I was bringing it home in pretty good fashion.

With just a mile to go (but it was still a MILE to go), it was time to dip into the mental bag of running tricks. I put a long-range elastic band around Brian, to get him to pull me along, and I continued to work on this mystery man on the trail with whom I was locked in mortal running combat. :-) Finally, I pulled around the guy with maybe 3/4 of a mile to go, and just kept on pushing. He didn't come back around me, but I wasn't looking back, so I didn't know if he was close behind or not. I got up that testy little rise under the Pfluger bridge, and from there, I knew it was flat running. I wasn't catching Brian, but he wasn't getting too much further away, either. Onto Auditorium Shores, then past Stevie, the guitar art projects, and finally Gilbert standing with his stopwatch. Done!

My last mile was 7:22, which made me happy. Overall, I scored 30:25, 7:36/mile pace. Definitely not a PB for this workout, but it was happily in the broad mid-range of scores for me, so I was pleased. The pace was faster than my Schlotzsky's Bun Run 5K race pace back in April, so this was a good effort for my comeback program. For me, this is the first time that my standard joke about the tempo race ("It's 4 miles at 5K race pace") was absolutely true!

A nice little half mile cooldown jog and 4 good striders later, we were done. I'm especially pleased that the striders felt natural to me. I've been dogged by a nagging left leg muscle strain, which caused the striders to be painful or clumsy events. This morning, it was a thrill to run freely at the end of the workout. Nice. Oh, yeah, it turns out that the Mystery Runner was a Gazelle. His name is Steve, and he's one of the new Chicago people. Cool. Someone else for our long run posse, I think.

Good stretching session followed, and that's about it. A good day at the running office, and this gives me some indications that I'm on the proper path to return to some good running fitness.