Today we did a five mile tempo run. After watching some of the races yesterday, I was pumped up and wanted to see how much I really had. I decided to push it hard and try to stay with the top group for as long as I could. We started out by warming up 2.5 miles. I was feeling pretty good, but not great. It didn't matter though, because I've realized I don't have to feel great to have a good workout. We started out and it didn't feel very fast. I tried to stay with the top pack, and I was able to. We came through the mile in 5:08. I was feeling pretty good, but it got harder as we went on. I came through the two mile in 10:02, so I ran a 4:54. I managed to stay pretty close to the top pack, but by 2.5 I started falling back. I came through three miles in a p.r. though, I was at 14:53 or 14:57, I can't remember. So that puts my third mile at about 4:51 or 4:55. After this I dropped back more. I could tell I was hurting from going out that fast. I came through four miles at about 20:15, so that mile was about 5:18-5:22. On my last mile, I pushed it a little harder, and finished at 25:27, so a 5:05 average for the five mile tempo run. I had more to give in the last mile, but I didn't push it too hard. This was one of my best workouts ever, even though I could have run it much smarter. I decided to push myself harder than ever before, and see how it played out. If I had stopped at 5k, I would have beat my best time by over thirty seconds. This helps me know how much I've improved, and I feel that I could have taken run at least a 15:20 if I had pushed it even harder to end at 5k. We cooled down 2.5 miles, and I feel pretty good, but my calfs are sore.
| 