Tempo (Plus Mile Repeat) Tuesday

My second post-injury tempo is in the books – along with my first post-injury speed workout!

 

I am working on being structured yet flexible with my training.  Maneuvering around tentative races and a lot of what-ifs, considering my training needs and my training buddy’s needs, and balancing life variables in general has made my master training schedule more fluid than usual.  I think this is a good exercise in flexibility for me, and I am never going to be one to slack on training (I am more likely to be one to over-train, but I am being more cautious of that as well).  I prefer to be perfectly by the book, but post-injury training just hasn’t been 100% conducive to that.  Don’t get me wrong – I still have my Excel spreadsheet and know plans for my weekly mileage, workout days, and general weekly structure, but Tuesday’s exact workout changed a few times before it came to fruition.

 

The workout came together 1) after I decided I wasn’t ready to race the Rock the Parkway half due to bombing my March 26 10K race, 2) after I decided to run a local 5K on April 9 instead, and 3) because Missy wanted me to pace her on some tempo miles.  Missy is racing a half on April 2 and had to be at work early on Tuesday, so she didn’t want to/couldn’t do a long workout.  We decided that we would do a 1-mile warm-up, then run 4-5 miles tempo, and then she would break off and get ready for work.  I decided that if I felt good I would do 2 x 1 mile repeats after the tempo, then cool down to complete my workout.

 

Because I couldn’t do math at 4:20 a.m., I ended up rushing out of my house thinking I was late, speeding down deserted roads, then arriving at our meeting spot about 6 minutes early (4:49 a.m.).  I like to do a 2-mile warm-up before hard workouts anyway, so texted Missy that I was going to start my warm-up and would loop back to meet her.  I ended up running almost a mile before she arrived at the correct time, then ran a second warm-up mile with her, and then we were off on our tempo!

 

My legs didn’t feel as fresh as last Tuesday when I had an awesome first tempo back, but they felt a whole lot better than in Saturday’s 10K!  Our splits for our 5-mile tempo were:  6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:30, 6:21.  I was quite proud of my pacing consistency!  I dropped the final mile intentionally or I promise it would have been 6:30-6:32 as well, haha!  We talked a lot more during this tempo than we should have, and I noticed that when we were gabbing we would drift to 6:35+ pace, and when we weren’t we would be closer to 6:25 pace.  But it was a good confidence boost that she can run that pace talking, and I know she will have a great half this weekend.

 

I excel at even splits

Missy had time for a half mile cool-down and then took off to get ready for work.  I ran an additional half mile (for 1 mile total recovery), then started my mile repeats.  I didn’t really know what to shoot for not only because I hadn’t done speed work since January, but also because I’d never done this workout before.  So I just went for 5K feel and saw what happened!

 

My first mile repeat was 6:10, then I ran a half mile recovery, and ran my second in 6:12.  Holy cow I could tell that I hadn’t run speed work since January – those hurt!  Those aren’t awful split times for me, but they also aren’t fantastic – but it is also hard to compare to straight out mile repeats I’ve done in the past since I ran a 5 mile tempo first.  Regardless, I think it was a beneficial workout for me to mix tempo and speed in a day, and a good start back!  My PR mile repeat workout is 4 x 1 mile in 5:50 average, so I have that to work back to - but no tempo first on that day!

 

I ended up running a 2.5 mile cool-down for 13 miles for the day.  I was able to do math well enough by 6:05 a.m. to determine my total mileage (the run was split into 4 portions on my Garmin because I reset it between the warm-up and tempo, then the tempo and speed work, etc.).  My legs were pretty spent by the end of it all.

 

All in all, I am feeling great and getting stronger.  My 5K on April 9 will not be anything impressive, but it will be a fun event and a good speed workout to get back into it!  And I am continuing to find joy in running, period.  Even if I’m not as fast as I was, I’m running – wheeeeeeeee!

P.S. Check out all of the orange in my Tuesday night dinner!

Guess I needed some vitamin A!