Man, I really hate winter--it has been a rough one. Good thing that it felt like Spring today (48 degrees when we started and a high of 66 degrees today) and I got to run in shorts for the first time since who knows...probably October around the time I last did a tempo run! Maybe it was the Spring like weather, or maybe all of the hard work from the last few weeks is beginning to pay off but today's run was no less than awesome.
I met the team at the Equinox at Columbus Circle at 6am, which apparently is the new meeting spot. Wish I had known that 2 weeks prior. Oh well! Before we got started, I dropped into the Equinox to pick up my guest pass for the beginner triathlon program. Turns out that my guest pass works at any Equinox at any time for the next 8 weeks. AMAZING! I can't even express how psyched I am about this. Equinox really is a beautiful gym and NYSC pales in comparison...except that it's almost $100 cheaper.
We got warmed up for the tempo by running easy over to the West Side path from Columbus Circle. Once we arrived, Spencer told us that the advanced group would do 7 miles and the intermediate group would be doing 6. Basically, from where we started at 59th street, 6 miles was down to Charles Street and back to the start. *sigh* I honestly didn't know if I had 6 tempo miles in me.
I know, I started this post by saying it was an amazing run. But don't be fooled, I still hated almost every minute of it, like every single other tempo run I have ever done in my life. According to Spencer, you should be comfortably uncomfortable for the duration of the tempo run and at about 85% max heart rate. I don't know about other people but 85% max heart rate for a long period of time is just plain uncomfortable for me. There is just nothing comfortable about it.
I started off feeling great. Mile 1 flew by and when I finished I realized that I had definitely over run it at a 7:51 pace. Who did I think I was?! I slowed down a bit and ran the next 2 miles at an 8:06 and then 8:03 pace. At that point, I was feeling really awful and had to give my self a pep talk just about every minute. First I said, okay, you will do 4 full miles. You can do that. And, if you do 4 miles averaging an 8 min pace, that's pretty respectable. Then, after I hit the 4 mile marker I told myself I could definitely do 5. I mean, what's one more mile. I definitely felt better than I did during the last 3 miles of the marathon, so I could definitely get through 5. Finally, once I got past the 5 mile mark, I convinced myself that I just couldn't stop. After all, I might be the last runner and the team would be waiting at the end for me. With all of that coaching of myself, I somehow made it through all 6, averaging an 8:10 pace for the whole run.
There is one part I HATE about the west side tempo runs. Because it's an out and back, the super fast guys (which is like EVERYONE because this marathon training group is like the super elite crew that leaves me in their dust) always end up passing me along the way. Today, I was actually quite happy to make it to the turn around point before the fast guys starting passing me on the way back. Basically I was happy I could run 3 miles faster than they could run 4. Oh, the little things.
Today I learned that I need to go out slower so I have more left in me for the end. My first mile was wayyyy too fast and then miles 4-6 were all between an 8:14 and 8:24 pace. I have this problem all the time--especially in races. I'm hoping to correct it when I run the NYC Half in a few weeks. But that said, I was very pleased with the run. I took a look at my old garmin times and I did this tempo 6 seconds faster per mile I did my last tempo for the marathon. Considering I've only really been running consistently for about a month and I haven't been particularly focused on running, that made me pretty happy. Also, since it's only February and I'm thinking of doing a half in mid March, late March, May and July, I figure by the time marathon training rolls around I HAVE to get significantly faster. For 2011, I'd really like to shave 10 minutes off last year's time.
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