Friday, July 10, 2009

Another Tempo Attempto

Last run in the County before heading back home to the Big Smoke, and it was a bit rough. The 3am wake up for some inexplicable reason didn't help. I simply could not get back to sleep. Then, just before dawn, about a billion species of birds decided to try and outdo one another in chirping and my attempts at getting more sleep were all in vain. I think I got about a half hour of broken shuteye at around 7am, but when I finally dragged myself out of bed at 8am I was completely exhausted.

However, running was on the menu for the morning and I didn't want to miss my tempo run, as much as I am beginning to dread these particular workouts. They are tough physically, but even more so mentally. As I started out at a light jog I was pretty worried about my ability to do what I set out to do. What was that, you might ask? Well, I wanted to run 10k at between 4:50 and 4:55/km pace. This was slower than last week's tempo, but I didn't want to stop at 5k and then tack on more mileage later in the run the way I was forced to back then.

So, after 2k warm up, I picked up the pace. The weather was great, nice and sunny, and at the beginning the wind was pretty non-existent. I was feeling not too bad, actually, and ran a bit faster than anticipated. According to a couple of things I've been checking out on the web, and based on my roughly 45-minute 10k PR, my target tempo pace is 4:40 - 4:48/km. I decided to try and hold as close to the upper limit of this range as possible and kept on chugging along. The first few kilometres flew by nicely, but when I turned south the wind hit me straight in the face and the going got tougher. At one point I also had to pass by a massive manure pile that was part of this mushroom growing business and, let me tell you, I almost gagged a few times. I thanked the wind at the time since it probably helped a lot in getting rid of the smell. Also, the fact that it was in my face meant that as soon as I passed by the site the smell was gone and didn't linger.

However, all of this, and the fact that the Sun was getting hotter, meant that my run was getting more and more difficult. By the time I hit the 5k mark of the tempo portion I was just hoping to hold on for 8k and forgot about trying to complete 10k at tempo pace. All that being said, I failed only on one interval (though on the last one I pretty much had to give it all I had over the last half kilometre just to get it back down into the desired range):
  1. 4:47 (7:42/mile)
  2. 4:45 (7:40/mile)
  3. 4:42 (7:34/mile)
  4. 4:48 (7:44/mile)
  5. 4:46 (7:40/mile)
  6. 4:48 (7:44/mile)
  7. 4:54 (7:53/mile)
  8. 4:47 (7:40/mile)
I ran a couple of really slow kilometres at the end to complete the 12km in 1:03:17 at an average pace of 5:16/km (8:29/mile). The tempo portion averaged out to 4:47/km, or about 7:40/mile, which was right on target despite the blip in the second last split where I was totally dying. Next up is another long run on Sunday morning. We'll be back in Toronto by then. Have a great weekend everyone!

Garmin don't lie.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Ace said...

Looks like an excellent run result to me. Its funny how the running in a new place can be so enjoyable until it is interrupted by giant piles of decomposing excrement. I hate it when that happens...

July 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM  
Blogger Marlene said...

I'd say you nailed it! Great run.

July 10, 2009 at 1:07 PM  
Blogger Bert said...

That looks like a great tempo run - any idea of your heart rate at that pace?

Ideally, for a tempo run, heart rate should be around 85% to not quite 90% of max. HR, or better yet 80% to 85% of heart rate reserve.

July 10, 2009 at 3:18 PM  
Blogger Vava said...

Bert: Thanks for the question! I'm not sure how to calculate Heart Rate Reserve, but looking at my stats for the 8k at tempo pace the average HR ended up at 161.5, which translates to 87% of my theoretical max of 185bpm (since I am 35 years old). I was definitely labouring in the last few kilometres, otherwise the run would have likely ended up in the high 150s, or about 85% of max.

July 10, 2009 at 3:48 PM  
Blogger Felice Devine said...

Nice job under less than ideal circumstances :-)

Have a good weekend!

July 10, 2009 at 5:24 PM  

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