Tempo Saturday

Today was an easy day. I was lazy this morning and didn't run with any of the groups as they were all doing more than what I needed and I knew tomorrow was my long run. Annette ran with Cheryl and some of the other girls on the last run of the Little Rock Marathon Training Group. I think they just did 6 miles. They were done pretty early and I got a call from Annette to meet everyone at the Daily Grind for coffee. Most of the Cabot runners ran 13 miles from the school so a bunch of them were there. I had some great coffee and a breakfast burrito. It ws good seeing everyone even though I didn't run with either group this morning but there were a couple other husbands there that didn't either so the joke was that the men were slacking. Yep, they are probably right.

I had pretty much decided to just run about 3 miles today so tomorrow I could do 10-13 and get my mileage for the week. I dug out the Ipod because I needed all the motivation I could get. I wasn't really feeling it but I wanted to feel it. It was pretty cool, about 42 degrees so I opted for a long sleeve tech shirt and running shorts. I cracked the Ipod up and took off. It was a very cool afternoon and there was a pretty good breeze going. I was going to run my 5k route, Fred's and back as I call it. Fairly flat, with only a couple very small inclines.

I really didn't set a purpose for this run other than just to get the miles so I was thinking run a 10:00-10:25 pace. Before I knew it I was in the low 9's and feeling good. So, the plan changed. I decided then that I'd try to make it a tempo run and see if I could hold my lactate threshold pace. When I got to Freds and the turn around point I was just over 1.5 miles. I had to walk across the street because of traffic but that was it, I was off and running. On the way back I hit a head wind. It must have been about a 15mph wind, just enough to try to slow me down but I wasn't going to let it. I wanted to maintain about a 9:40 pace. This would hurt me some but thats ok.

Before I knew it I was sprinting the last .1 past my house. I don't think I have ever ran this route this fast, not that it was fast at all, but in training runs I am usually not fast at all. It was a great run though, seemed like it was over before it got started which is not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Here is my times:

Total miles- 3.11
time - 30:22 (no, this is not my normal race time which is much faster)
Avg. Pace - 9:47
1-9:49
2-9:59
3-9:48
.1-7:20

Bring on the long run tomorrow!