Well today I had a scheduled 7 mile tempo run, but I thought I would take it easy, because of the way I've been feeling the last couple of days. I thought I would run an even pace of 6:30 for 7 miles which is way above my tempo speeds. I was up till 11:30pm last night doing homework and I thought this sounded like a good plan. The weather was wonderful 33 degrees no wind sunny and it was warm.
Approaching the end of the first mile I thought "NO Way!" I'm not going to take the easy route the whole point of this training is to get the best ability out of my body leading to the taper, so I thought I would ease into the Tempo Run. The warm-up mile I did was 7:21 and then I started the tempo portion.
6:12
6:18 (I was messing with my ipod on this mile and it caused me to slow down a bit, I should have just left it alone. But it still shouldn't have stopped me from running this mile better.).
6:08
6:03
5:59
6:06
6:04
6:32 (cool down mile but my mind was wandering thinking of the flying pizza boxes that Scott was having to dodge in Philly. I was also thinking about how his hill repeats went in frigid weather).
6:48 ( better cool down mile but still had a lot on my mind and not paying attention to my pace.. SLOW DOWN.)
I really felt good on this run today and not sluggish, except I could have done a better job on mile 2 of the tempo portion. Now I've done back to back speed days this week which last week I did them between a recovery run. It seems I perform better with back to back speed days. I know that's not the recommended way to do it and its hard on your body. I'm not sure why it works better for me. I don't consider it the right way to train, but I guess if it works keep doing it.
Tomorrow will be an easy recovery run.
Ran 2.3 miles at the Health Club this afternoon at a recovery pace of 7:40. I really like running in the afternoons after a hard morning run, because it feels good to do an easy unfocused run. I lifted just on my upper body today, nothing on the legs. I already torn enough muscle fibers on my tempo run. Makes no sense to strain them more.
12.6 miles | 