My plan today was to do a recovery run after yesterday’s slow 12 miles. I was on my own as my running partner had the dual recovery going on, 12 miles and a open bar gala last night. Since the both of us plan to do a recovery run tomorrow, I decided to just wing it and see what I was comfortable running. During my first mile I was lugging a pile of library books along with me for the first half and managed to do 9:30. I thought that sounds about what I expected. During the second mile I was paying more attention to my heart rate which was around 150-155 so I wasn’t real sure of my pace. When the mile two beep sounded I had ran that last mile at 8:17! And I felt pretty strong, so I decided to do another mile at that pace which I did. As I started into the fourth mil I knew there were going to be hills so I decided I would try to recover for a mile. The first half was all up hill and I relinquished the pace but not the HR which was hovering around 170+. For mile five I cranked out another 8:15 before hitting another set of hills. Again I relinquished the pace but kept the HR up topping 181 at one point and keeping a pretty steady HR of 175-180 for the next six tenths before I decided to back off and recover up the last hill. My last mile I ran pretty steady but relaxed around a 9:30 pace with a stop off at the library. All in all a much faster run than I expected and very enjoyable after the luxurious slowness of yesterday. Speed rules…sometimes.

I was planning to do a speed run tomorrow to add some variety to my runs which I am feeling I really need to do in order to improve. Then my running partner sent me this article on tempo runs and announced she would be doing one at the gym tonight. Inspiring as always she got me thinking I should do one as well and with the added benefit of adding even more variety to my running workouts since I did speed work last week (not ready to do both workouts in one week!)

So since the last 10K I did I ran at an 8 minute mile, following this article’s directions I added 15 seconds to that to establish my tempo pace of 8:15 miles. I wasn’t totally firm on nailing that exact pace, but I decided I would just run fast for the prescribed 20+ minutes sandwiched in between 15 minute warm up and cool down runs. Last night I planned out my route in my mind and this morning I hit the somewhat chilly (but not enough so that I wore tights) day.

I warmed up for about 15 minutes or so, actually covered a shorter distance than I had planned. I think I was going so slowly on the warm up and I was excited (excited?) about the fast pace that I just couldn’t hold back. So I was off! I checked the watch and figured my time (8:00) that I needed to start my cool down. As I was nearing my first turn back toward the college I realized how quickly I was going through my normal route. The blocks were flying by!

Like I said earlier, I wasn’t totally sure what my pace was exactly, but as fast as I was going I was able to keep my three steps in and two steps out breathing going for the first 2/3 of the fast portion. For the final 1/3 I switched to a 2-2 breathing pattern. As I was nearing the college I realized that my first guess of how far I needed to go was off and that I would need to go further to my second estimate point. When I hit the that second guess I was perfectly on schedule at 8:00, 23 minutes of fast pace running. Phew, the temp portion was over! Time to cool down. My cool down was longer than it probably needed to be, but that was ok with me.

As I type this I feel the run in my thighs, gotta love that soreness you get from knowing you worked hard. I am looking forward to the next tempo run I do!

I was planning to do a speed run tomorrow to add some variety to my runs which I am feeling I really need to do in order to improve. Then my running partner sent me this article on tempo runs and announced she would be doing one at the gym tonight. Inspiring as always she got me thinking I should do one as well and with the added benefit of adding even more variety to my running workouts since I did speed work last week (not ready to do both workouts in one week!)

So since the last 10K I did I ran at an 8 minute mile, following this article’s directions I added 15 seconds to that to establish my tempo pace of 8:15 miles. I wasn’t totally firm on nailing that exact pace, but I decided I would just run fast for the prescribed 20+ minutes sandwiched in between 15 minute warm up and cool down runs. Last night I planned out my route in my mind and this morning I hit the somewhat chilly (but not enough so that I wore tights) day.

I warmed up for about 15 minutes or so, actually covered a shorter distance than I had planned. I think I was going so slowly on the warm up and I was excited (excited?) about the fast pace that I just couldn’t hold back. So I was off! I checked the watch and figured my time (8:00) that I needed to start my cool down. As I was nearing my first turn back toward the college I realized how quickly I was going through my normal route. The blocks were flying by!

Like I said earlier, I wasn’t totally sure what my pace was exactly, but as fast as I was going I was able to keep my three steps in and two steps out breathing going for the first 2/3 of the fast portion. For the final 1/3 I switched to a 2-2 breathing pattern. As I was nearing the college I realized that my first guess of how far I needed to go was off and that I would need to go further to my second estimate point. When I hit the that second guess I was perfectly on schedule at 8:00, 23 minutes of fast pace running. Phew, the temp portion was over! Time to cool down. My cool down was longer than it probably needed to be, but that was ok with me.

As I type this I feel the run in my thighs, gotta love that soreness you get from knowing you worked hard. I am looking forward to the next tempo run I do!

I am reading a running book called Brain Training for Runners. It is very interesting so far, but I really don’t think it is for me. The program is a little aggressive and prepares you for a specific race, of which I am not training for anything right now. Still I enjoy reading about other people’s thoughts on running and it always gets me fired up to get better.

One of the concepts he has is talking about (and others that I have read) are the different types of runs that you can do. Here are a few of them he mentions:Intervals – doing alternating fast and slow running; Hill Repeats – sprinting up hills for a short distance; Temp Runs – Runs slightly slower than your goal race pace; Base Runs – the building blocks of any program, just your all purpose runs that get you to your weekly mileage goals, and others. So today I did a Tempo Run. Actually all I did was push myself to run faster. If I caught myself slowing down I would up the pace. It was a somewhat tough run but it felt really great. After a couple miles I was questioning whether I should do this, but I kept going. I know I slowed down a bit towards the end, but that’s fine. I think I got the benefits out of it that I needed.

I have done these in the past and have noticed some pain in one of my knees or sometimes hips. Nothing like that today. If I had noticed it I would have abandoned the plan and run a more basic run or if really bad crawled back home on hands and knees. This is another concept that Matt Fitzgerald (the author of the above book) discusses; the importance of listening to your body and following it’s instructions. This is a concept I wholeheartedly embrace. Your body is your best coach. More on this later.

One last note before I get to work. last night I managed to give myself a new sports injury. It is probably one of the more common sports injuries in America as it took place on teh couch as I was cheering for my Blazers. They hit a great three-pointer and I wildly shook my fist as I jumped off the couch. Well I think in doing so I managed to do something to my elbow, probably hyper-extended it a bit. I call it couch-potato elbow. To add insult to injury (no pun intended until I wrote it) the Blazers ended up losing the game on a last second shot by Orlando. Grrr.

I am reading a running book called Brain Training for Runners. It is very interesting so far, but I really don’t think it is for me. The program is a little aggressive and prepares you for a specific race, of which I am not training for anything right now. Still I enjoy reading about other people’s thoughts on running and it always gets me fired up to get better.

One of the concepts he has is talking about (and others that I have read) are the different types of runs that you can do. Here are a few of them he mentions:Intervals – doing alternating fast and slow running; Hill Repeats – sprinting up hills for a short distance; Temp Runs – Runs slightly slower than your goal race pace; Base Runs – the building blocks of any program, just your all purpose runs that get you to your weekly mileage goals, and others. So today I did a Tempo Run. Actually all I did was push myself to run faster. If I caught myself slowing down I would up the pace. It was a somewhat tough run but it felt really great. After a couple miles I was questioning whether I should do this, but I kept going. I know I slowed down a bit towards the end, but that’s fine. I think I got the benefits out of it that I needed.

I have done these in the past and have noticed some pain in one of my knees or sometimes hips. Nothing like that today. If I had noticed it I would have abandoned the plan and run a more basic run or if really bad crawled back home on hands and knees. This is another concept that Matt Fitzgerald (the author of the above book) discusses; the importance of listening to your body and following it’s instructions. This is a concept I wholeheartedly embrace. Your body is your best coach. More on this later.

One last note before I get to work. last night I managed to give myself a new sports injury. It is probably one of the more common sports injuries in America as it took place on teh couch as I was cheering for my Blazers. They hit a great three-pointer and I wildly shook my fist as I jumped off the couch. Well I think in doing so I managed to do something to my elbow, probably hyper-extended it a bit. I call it couch-potato elbow. To add insult to injury (no pun intended until I wrote it) the Blazers ended up losing the game on a last second shot by Orlando. Grrr.