Tempo run - 11 miles w/ 6 miles @ 15K-1/2M pace. 8:36 am, 29-34°F, 62% humidity, winds 2 S. This was a tough run. I've had workouts like this that called for 15K-1/2m pace before and I figured if I was a little slower than 8:00 pace on them, that was fine. But then I had to go run a 1/2 marathon last Saturday and acquire a new 1/2M pace. Based on that race, my 15K-1/2M pace is 7:43-7:54. So I guess now I have to run my tempo workouts faster than I had been.
Usually when I have a workout like this, I run the warm-up miles really slowly in order to rest up for the tempo portion. The problem with that approach is that I have to increase my speed so drastically when I start the tempo portion, and I haven't been able to hit the target pace for the first couple of tempo miles. So I had this idea that it would be better to run the warm-up miles a little faster and try to increase my speed so that I was closer to the target pace when I started the tempo portion and wouldn't have to make such a jump. So that's what I tried to do today. It worked out okay to begin with, and I hit the target pace on my first tempo mile. But then I hit the dreaded mile 5 on this route, with it's 125 feet of elevation gain to only 13 feet of elevation loss. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot to some of you, but it's just this gradual uphill for nearly the whole mile. Actually, the gradual uphill starts in mile 4, so I'm already tired by the time I start mile 5. Maybe I need to find a new route to do my tempo runs on. I was in about mile 6 overall (mile 3 of the tempo) and was running along a main road. I was crossing at a light when a smaller street met the main road. When I was half-way across, the light turned yellow, so I picked up the pace, and waved to the car that was waiting to turn onto the main street, so that they would see me and wait for me. Well, it turned out to be my good friend Bozena, whom I haven't seen in several months, in that car. She recognized me and waved. I waved back but kept running, so I didn't stop and talk to her or anything. Still, it was a nice surprise to see her. Yesterday's blister didn't really bother me. I didn't even really feel it at all until the last mile. Yesterday evening I popped it and then put neosporin and a band-aid on it, and that seemed to help. I'm going to try to buy some new running shoes today. AP: 8:30. Splits: 9:37, 9:00, 8:48, 7:52, 8:31, 8:02, 7:43, 7:53, 7:49, 8:53, 9:16. So all of my tempo miles were in the appropriate range except for the 2nd one, which was way too slow, and the 3rd one, which has about 70 feet of elevation loss and gain for a net of 0. I guess I was still tired from the 2nd mile on the 3rd mile. Also. I've got a bit of a head cold, so maybe that hurt me a bit.
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