Because of my up and down training over the last couple of months, I am not really sure of my level of fitness and what pace I should plan on for my upcoming half marathon. Today I hoped to sort some of this out with a tempo run on the track. This is my only way to get exact times since my normal road routes are rough measurements. Today I wanted to see what it felt like to hold 6:50 pace. I planned on running 5 miles at this tempo pace. It was a very nice morning (60, light wind) and I started off with a two mile warmup. After this I jumped into the tempo run and immediately felt like I had to push to hold this pace. I was slow the first half mile so picked it up to get back on my target pace. I came through the first mile in 7:00 but was already starting to feel like this was faster than I could hold for 13 miles. The 2nd mile was not to bad and stayed on pace. As I got into the 3rd mile I was starting to really feel the effort and the effects of the lost mileage over the last two months. On the 4th mile I started to realize I wasn't going to hold this pace for 5 miles unless I wanted it to feel more like a race and less like a tempo run. Because of this I cut the tempo at 4 miles. Here are my splits: 1st - 7:00 2nd - 6:50 3rd - 6:54 4th - 6:51 So what did I learn today. Probably no sub 1:30 half-marathon for me next week. Based on the way I felt today there is no way I can hold that pace for 13 miles. I will run another tempo early next week and target 7:05 to 7:10 pace to see how that feels. I have to realize that based on my recent training I have probably slid back instead moving forward. There are shortcomings in this game! | 