Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tuesday Tempo Taper

Tuesday means tempo run. But it's my cutback/mini-taper week so the plan for this week is reduced mileage (44 vs 84). Instead of 6 miles tempo at tempo pace +12 seconds, it's 3 miles at true tempo pace (6:42).

Picked an easy (ie. net downhill by 100') course and after a couple miles warmup decided to go a little faster than tempo (6:42 is based on the 1/1 10k race, but is probably closer to 6:35 right now). Had a lot of energy since I didn't run at all yesterday and I'm getting pumped up about the race on Sunday, so this was my last real chance to see where I'm at before the start.

First tempo mile was fast, at 6:13 but it didn't feel too hard, so I kept at that pace thru mile 2 (6:12) and then the final mile was slightly uphill. Tried to stay on pace but slowed to 6:18 (which was an increased effort). Average for 3 was 6:14, which was way fast, and the effort was over tempo (HR peaked at 175 at teh end of that 3rd mile!). But it felt great. I also accidentally beat my 5k PR with a 19:29.

All in all, a good confidence boost for this weekend. I should be able to hit those 2 downhill miles in the middle pretty quickly (around 6:15ish), which is going to give me a big buffer during the final 6 miles that go up/down the coast.

I'm ready! All I need now is some good weather.

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