Speed Work before the marathon build

On Monday I got back on the trace.  I ran easy in the morning and easy in the afternoon for a total of 10 miles.

Tuesday I rode the bike for just a few miles but tried to work on my sprints.  I took big recoveries and then went all out for 45 seconds to a minute.  I picked signs and posts and any object that I could find and made them the finish line. I was winning Tour de France stages left and right for the first few sprints and then the speed started to fade.  Oh well, I was having fun.

For lunch on Tuesday I headed out to the trace.  I wanted to do a solid tempo to gauge my middle distance speed.  It would be slower than last weekends run leg of the Mighty Magnolia but a tough effort.  I plugged in 5 miles at 6:30 pace and challenged my Garmin “virtual nemeses’.

From the start, the legs were like lead.  He was putting distance into me immediately.  I kicked it up a notch and stopped the bleeding but he was already 50 feet in front of me.  I settled into pace and tried to reel him back to me.  It was slow going.  I was only maintaining.  At that point I crossed the 7th street bridge which is a slight downhill.  That brought him back to me.  I knew in the back of my mind that this decline would turn into an incline on the way back.  I wanted to now put some distance into him.  I kept the pace steady not wanting to blow up.

I was able to maintain and build a slight buffer of a hundred feet or so.  I was also able keep this lead going up the hill back to my starting point.

I finished the tempo in 32:18 for an average pace of 6:28.  The splits were – 6:31 / 6:28 / 6:34 / 6:18 / 6:26.  It was a solid effort but not a race effort by any means.  I need to add 8 miles at this pace to reach my goals.  This is the pace that I want to run a half marathon (1:25).

I’m not there yet.  Give me 20 degrees cooler temperatures and a couple of months and I will see you at the finish line!