"I got you 8 miles for your birthday" & a solid tempo

I can't express how much I love our women's training group!  Although we now have men who run with us (less consistently than the women, I will note), I'm still calling us the competitive women's group.  We literally and figuratively run the farm roads (that's what country roads are called in Missouri, e.g., Farm Road 165).

May 25 was Danielle's birthday, so we celebrated by giving her 8 miles, donuts that no one ate, a celebration sign, and some photo ops!  It's truly a party at 5:30 a.m., right?!

Pre-run

Beautiful scenery & it's so light at 6:00 a.m. now!

Post-run in the parking lot where so much magic happens

Photo of a photo op plus pup Macy

On May 23, I ran a 6 mile tempo run.  My goal pace range was 5:57-6:10, and I'm supposed to start at the slower end of the range and get faster as the run progresses...thankfully, because I think know I would crash and burn if I started at 5:57!  I ended up hitting it in 36:03.8 (precisely, hah) via 6:08, 6:09, 6:02, 5:57, 5:55, 5:51 (6:00.6 average, precisely, again, hah).  Last week I ran my 4 mile tempo at 6:01 average, so I felt great about running 2 miles farther at the same pace -- even though the 6 miler was on a nice road course vs. the 4 miler on a dirt loop with some crappy footing, but I'm not bursting my bubble!  Although if you know me at all you also know I was kicking myself for not running 4 seconds faster for a 35:59!  Since I'd started closer to 6:10 I had no idea I'd be so close to breaking 36, but now I have a clear goal for next time.

This was a great confidence boosting run going into the Dam to Dam half marathon on June 3.  My previous best 6 mile tempo (which was the last time I ran a 6 mile tempo) was at 6:09 pace on 12/20/16 -- although I ran an 8 mile tempo at 6:06 pace on 1/3/17, so the final 6 miles of that one would have been faster than 6:09 average (technicalities).  I also looked back at my 6 mile tempo in summer 2016 to find that I ran it at 6:24 average and was really happy with that at the time, so I'm stoked that I improved my pace by 24 seconds/mile in 10 months.  Granted, I'm sure the July 2016 one was in warmer temperatures, but it was about 58* and humid for this one so also not perfect.

Anyhow, the Dam to Dam race comes at an awkward time in my training cycle, so my coach told me to go for a PR there because he knows I want to and it's not unreasonable, but also to not be disappointed if I don't get one because of the timing.  I think a lot of it will come down to the weather too; I don't think I'm dumb enough to try for it if it's 70* and humid, or if we have a headwind on the point-to-point course.  But if the weather is good I'm going all in, and if I crash I crash knowing I tried!  In the final 2 miles of this tempo I pretended like I was running the final 2 miles of Dam to Dam and that I needed to run them at 6:00 pace or under to break 1:21...which is why I probably pushed the last mile too hard, but eh.  My legs were still fine enough for a 7:20 pace cool down and a 7:30 pace shake out run 5 hours later, so I didn't trash them with the push.

My Garmin told me I ran a 5K best of 18:19 during this tempo (the final 5K, clearly), which made me believe that I actually can race an 18:18 5K on a hilly course.  It also re-affirmed that I need a lot of warming up to run decent 5Ks.  I'll get you some day, 17:59 5K (possibly unrealistic).  I'll get you some day, 5:59 pace tempo (more realistic)!

Splits

Best 5K per this Garmin

Bandit warmed up my clothes before the run