Another exercise in reprogramming my central governor, if you believe Tim Noakes, or improving my lactate threshold, if you listen to Jack Daniels (I'm more inclined to go with Noakes, for reasons I've cited on this blog in the past). Twelve miles on the RT with 5 at tempo pace. This is actually the first tempo run I've ever done that I didn't have the dreadmill forcing me to run at the proper pace, so I was interested to see how I'd handle it. Started at 6 p.m., earlier than usual for evening runs, so I'd finish before dark. Unfortunately, even that start was delayed by a few minutes by traffic on the freeway getting to the RT. From what I could tell, the cause of that tie-up was a fatal accident; as I drove by the overturned vehicle, the police had a sheet there to hide what was happening behind it, which is a pretty good indication that there was a fatality. Really a downer for me, and my prayers are with the family and friends of the victim or victims. Now, back to the inconsequential stuff. Started out slow and gradually picked it up. I thought I'd calculated it so that my five-mile tempo run would start at the top of a hill on the outgoing half and end at the base of the same hill incoming. Uh, no. I ended up starting and finishing at just about the same place -- the top of that hill. Plus the incoming half was right into a pretty stiff wind as more rain blows into central Arkansas tonight. I had to calculate the times and averages for the tempo section. As I suspected, my paces were inconsistent without the TM to force me into the exact pace, and the wind and the two fairly substantial uphills on the incoming half were no help either (yes, I know I got the benefit of those two downhills outgoing, so quiet already). I ended up averaging a 7:27 for the five miles. I might have actually set my 5K PR tonight without knowing it, because my PR averaged 7:15.5. Probably not, but with my variation in pace, who knows? A short 4-mile recovery run tomorrow, then 24 on Saturday for my first (and possibly last) 90-mile week. | 