What this should really be called is “winded and windy wednesday” because on Wednesday, that’s what I was. Strong winds and tempo runs go together like…oil and water? Is that too cliche? Probably. Ok, they go together like nachos and carrots. Right then. On with it.
I did my very first tempo run that involved 5 entire miles at tempo. Both Suz and I were not feeling the most enthusiastic about the run. We were both tired and the wind was a little daunting. As we did our warm up mile we said “we could always do 4 if we feel like death” but figured we’d give the 5 our best shot.
Of course the wind picked up just as we started tempo mile number one but that’s when you’re feeling best right? When I look at the splits, I can tell when we turned away from the wind, and I can also tell why that third one felt so incredibly awful – we were running a good 15 seconds faster than needed (because the Garmins were going wonky and we had to run based on what we thought was the right pace – which I find is always faster than it should be).
We were incredibly inconsistent, but we finished all five of those scary tempo miles at or under tempo pace. I felt pretty good about that. 7 miles with 5 at tempo. It made me feel kind of hard core. Like maybe I’ll get faster after all.
(oh – and I ended up with full on hives again after that run. UGH – still allergic to running)
Inspired By Dooce 