42F, cloudy, wind 11 mph w/ gusts to 20. Tempo run: 3 E, 4 T on roads and hills (8:55, 8:36, 8:50, 8:49), 2+ E. 20 min. strength work. I managed to miss the rain by pure luck. Rain before and rain after, but no rain for me! 42F felt pretty warm. That is the first time we've been over 40 for quite a while. The splits aren't great but I have to give myself some credit for the hills and wind. Even so, I don't believe I was pushing myself as hard as I did on my tempo runs last summer. The pace without hills/wind today would probably have been 8:40 to 8:45, as opposed to the 8:30 I was shooting for last summer. Mile 2, the fastest mile, was mostly flat with a bit of downhill for a couple of blocks. I think I'll be ok relaxing a little on tempo runs for 2 reasons: the slightly slower pace gives me enough breath to make the work focus on lactate threshold more than VO2. In other words, legs more than lungs. I always felt there was very little difference between my VO2 workouts and my tempo runs last summer, except for the duration of agony. I liked thinking "this is like a 10K" instead of "this is like a 5K." The second reason it seemed like a better pace was that I really can make it through 4 miles without coughing up a lung afterward, and I can even believe that I will work up to longer distances. I think the continuous tempo run will be better for me. Last summer I had to break them up when I went over 4 miles. Please let me know if my thinking is in error here, blog-buddies. I don't want to cheat myself. I just want to be more clear about the objectives of these workouts and not see them all as the same torture just dressed up with different names. :) | 