I ran a long run on the mall loop this morning. It was the first long tempo that I have run run since running the Illinois Marathon. I ran to the mall, and then ran 6 laps around the mall before beginning the tempo run. I got up at 5:30 this morning, and the sun had not yet come up over the tops of the mountains. However, by the time I made it out the door around 5:45 the sun was above the mountains, and the temperature was somewhere near 80 degrees (my phone said 82, but it doesn't update often, so it may have been cooler). Knowing that it was progressively getting warmer, I was unsure how the tempo would go. By the time I started the tempo run, the sun was beating down on me, and any semblance of a shadow cast by the surrounding buildings was long gone. I decided to not worry too much about the pace as long as it was sub 6:00, and I started the tempo. My HR started out near 160, rose up to the high 160's after a couple miles, and then rose higher still to the low-mid 170's. In the last mile, my HR got as high as 186, staying around 180 for the majority of that mile. I took lap splits (1.25 miles each) and mile splits during the run. The lap splits are probably a better indicator of how fast I was going. Mile splits are as follows: 5:56, 5:56, 5:51, 5:53, 5:51, 5:47, 5:46, 5:45, 5:46, 5:33. Lap splits were: 7:30, 7:23, 7:19, 7:15, 7:17, 7:12, 7:12, 6:56. Total time of 58:04. After finishing the tempo, I ran home to finish with a total time for 20 miles of 2:12:28.
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