Fuzzy Headed

Once again, I've discovered several things from today's run.

The first is that when planning a run, I should really concentrate. Today was my first tempo run of this training plan. Essentially (and runners, correct me or add on to me if I'm wrong or too simple here) a tempo run is a run where you run faster than your normal, easy pace for a sustained period of time. In other words, when I do "easy" long runs, I run slower than I do on tempo runs. During my first half-marathon training program two years ago, I developed a system for tempo and speedwork runs: write the route in Sharpie on my hand so I know when to check my actual time against my planned time. It's actually a pretty great system. The Sharpie doesn't run too much while I'm running but comes off pretty easily in the shower, and I don't need to drop several hundred dollars on a Garmin. Today, though, I was foiled by two things. First, I didn't pay close enough attention while writing down my mile markers. I missed a middle one entirely and I accidently wrote down the same landmark for two different miles. This of course made pacing difficult. Secondly, while on my run I was too blurry-headed to remember what the heck some of my notes meant. Oh well...it should get easier again.

So that basically brings me to the stats that I could figure out. My first mile, which was supposed to be a warm-up mile, was finished in 11:45 (my tempo time was supposed to be 11:27, so this was a fairly fast warmup). My first tempo mile was finished in around the same time. My second two tempo miles, however, were fast. How fast, I don't really know due to the reasons I listed above. But I was definitely somewhere around two minutes below my target time at that point. By the end of the run I had gone 5.27 miles in 62:18 for an average per mile time of 11:49. Considering that includes my warm-up and cool-down miles, plus that slower first tempo mile, this is a pretty good number.

And this was also my last run before the 5k on Saturday. Hopefully the two days of rest I've bought will help me out. I don't have a time goal in mind. The first and only 5k I ran was 31:30, a slow time but not terrible for me. When I ran my half-marathon, I had splits under 10 minutes, so I'm hoping that somehow I'll PR (such as it is), but I'm not holding my breath.