5 mile tempo

Since my new issue of "Runner's World" arrived this week, with an article stressing the importance of tempo runs, I've decided this is something I need to focus on more. So today, I went out and did one.

Started off with the first mile at a warmup-ish pace of 8:27, then put in 3.1 miles at a 7:30 pace, and then cooled down back at 8:27, with a slight pickup to 8:00 for the last quarter mile or so, because I was bored and wanted to get it over with. All in all, my iPod says I did 5.11 miles in 39:03, for an average pace of 7:38/mile. Not too shabby. I followed that up with a solid 35 minutes on the bike (30 @ good pace, 5 @ cool down) and finally a good set of stretches. Fridays after work are the best workouts because the fitness center is the least crowded it ever gets. Just us losers who have nothing better to do on a Friday evening. :)

Half marathon training - Week 3 - Tempo run

Today was a little more than just a tempo run. I recently joined a Nike+ challenge with a couple of other people from Flickr. The challenge is called 'The Leprechaun Run', and the goal is to run the fastest 5 miler before St. Patrick's Day. So I decided to make my tempo run my first attempt at winning the challenge. No one had run before me, but I saw after uploading my time that I'm a little over 2 minutes slower than the leader, so I think I'm bound for (hopefully) 2nd place.

As you can see from the graph, I gradually picked up my pace over the 5 miles, with a mile 1 pace of 7:52, and mile 5 pace of 7:11. Overall, it took 38:09, for an average pace of 7:37/mi. I did this on the treadmill after work, with a 1% incline. It was a better time than I had hoped for, so I guess there is hope that I might have a decent showing when I run the St. Malachi Run, a 5 mile race, in 2 weeks. I followed up the run with 10 minutes of hard biking, followed by a 5 minute cool down.

4 mile tempo

Today's run was done on the treadmill at the fitness center after work, which was surprisingly still not crowded (even less so than Wednesday). I hopped on my preferred treadmill, which is quickly becoming unpreferred because it seems to over-report my distance as compared to my iPod. Today, I had to run 4.2 miles to get my iPod to register 4 miles. Usually it's the other way around on the treadmills.

I started off the first 1/2 mile at around a 9:00/mi pace, and then at the .5 mile marker, I kicked it up to a 7:30/mi pace and kept it there for the next 3 full miles. It was tough to keep up, but I managed. For the final 1/2 mile, I knocked the speed back down a bit with a slight increase near the end (just to get the thing over with). My legs were pretty sore afterwards, and my lungs weren't too happy. But it was a good run.