Thursday, January 06, 2011

A B-minus Run

Today called for the Mother of All Tempo Runs. Well, at least for the current training cycle. The plan called for the longest tempo run of the cycle - 10 miles. the pace called for was either planned marathon pace (9:09) or 10K + 40 seconds (8:41).

I was a bit intimidated by this workout but I was going to give it my best shot. I headed on over to the river trail during lunch (and yes I stayed late to make up for the extra long lunch break). Conditions were good - mostly cloudy skies, light breeze, 65 degrees. My goal was to stick to the marathon pace as much as possible. The run started off well enough but didn't end up so well. I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Mile 1 8:55
Mile 2 8:47
Mile 3 8:44
Mile 4 8:22
Mile 5 8:30
Mile 6 8:39
Mile 7 8:40
Mile 8 9:05
Mile 9 9:56
Mile 10 10:19

I realized early on that I was running too fast to make it the entire 10 miles. I even took some walk breaks along the way if I realized I was approaching a mile marker in less than the fastest pace of 8:41. By Mile 7 all momentum was lost. Mile 8 was respectable and almost on target, but those last two are just disgraceful. All told, my final total time was 1:30 so my average pace was a nice round 9:00/mile; right on target. I just needed to even things out a bit.

So for 8 good miles, albeit a bit too fast, I'm giving myself a B-.

5 comments:

Anne said...

I should make sure some friends just learning tempo runs read this to understand how to do it. Nice one, Darrell. (And nice look on the blog too.)

Wes said...

A+ in my book! :-)

DREW said...

I have dabbled with the FIRST method and have not been able to stick with it for various reasons. Good job hanging in there with it. I'm anxious to hear it if helps when you've completed it.

Joe said...

Boy, pacing is everything, isn't it.

Do you want me to run a laminated 9:08 pace chart for you to use in Austin?? That way you could know each mile where you are and not waste energy early??? I've got the template and the laminator.

And you know of my love of charts, anyway :-)

/

LPC Ceus said...

Wow!!!