Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Tempo Effort w/ a Twist

My threshold work the past 3-weeks has been at about 5:55 - 5:58 pace.  This included 3 x 1-mile w/ 1-minute rests, a 3-mile Tempo Run, and of course the dreaded 2-mile repeats w/ 2-minute rests.  

Being that the third workout (the 2-mile repeats) was the first time I had any difficulty, coach decided to change up my effort today.  I imagine she wants to get more of a handle on where I'm at - so instead of doing 1-mile cruise intervals again (which was on the schedule) she wanted me to do another 3-mile Tempo Run - with a twist.  This time, back off to 6:10 pace - the idea here being that perhaps the 5:55 - 5:58 pace is more at the "front end" of my T-pace, such that I can handle the easier workouts at that pace, but the tougher T-workouts are slightly out of reach for me.  So the plan was to shift the Tempo Run to the "back end" of the T-range (about 6:10) and then after that effort, take the standard short rest of 1-minute per mile (so 3-minutes in this case) and then run another 1-mile at T-pace where the goal was to run a very controlled effort but to pick the tempo up to slightly under 6:00 for the mile.  

I imagine that by me getting pre-fatigued w/ the 3-mile tempo run at the "back end" pace, she would learn something about my current fitness by seeing how that 4th mile went.  

So I ran my 3-miler at 6:10 pace.  For whatever reason I was expecting it to be a total walk in the park, and it was not - I actually needed to concentrate a little during that middle mile to make sure I didn't lose the pace.  The good news was that after the effort was over, it only took a minute and 20 seconds, for my HR to recover down to 128.  By the time the 3-minute rest was up, I felt completely ready to run.  

Probably a little too ready - I went out too fast on the 4th mile and had to purposely slow myself down on the second half of the first lap which still came in at 1:23.  After that I made the adjustment, but as it often times happens, I slowed a little too much for my liking.  So I picked it back up a bit and finally ran a nice consistent pace for the last 2-laps.  No kick here - didn't want to 'alter the data'.  I came across the finish in 5:52.  What does it mean?  I don't know.  I sent the info over to the coach and perhaps she'll be able to determine the pace at which I should be running most of these workouts going forward.  

Training:

10/1:  6-miles including 4 @ T-pace.  3-mile Tempo Run @ 6:10 pace, followed by 3-min break, then 1-mile @ 5:52.  Ave/Max HR of Tempo Run - 161/167, Ave/Max HR of 4th mile - 163/169


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