Miracles Do Happen

Today was our biweekly tempo run. Per usual, I had been dreading this run all week, especially after getting killed at WFBC on Wednesday. I woke up with super sore hamstrings, quads and abs (Ruben really did a number on me this week) and hit snooze until about 5:50am. Oops! Finally, I got myself together and hopped in a cab (I know...I should not be dropping dollars on cabs but sometimes it's just necessary for those 15 extra minutes) at 6am and made it down near our meeting place at 59th street and the west side path around 6:10. I jogged over the 2 blocks from where the cab left me to the west side instead of the 1 mile I had initially planned to warm up.

I caught the tail end of group stretching and then Spencer let us know that we would be doing 8 miles at tempo pace or what he and running magazines like to call a "comfortably hard" pace. 8 miles is a loooong time to maintain a "comfortably hard" pace, especially when I mostly feel the hard part. Spencer also advised us to take the first mile a bit slower and that it should be our slowest mile. I, along with many others in the group tend to have a problem with overrunning the first mile despite Spencer stressing that we not every single week.

So here's the miracle you've been waiting for, "I DIDN'T HATE IT!!!" Now, please don't be confused, this was no easy run. While felt like I could have kept going at the end, which I suppose is the hallmark of comfortably hard, I certainly did not want to and I definitely wanted to slow down the whole time. At the same time, I felt pretty strong being able to hold an 8 min/mile pace give or take a few seconds for the whole 8 miles. And, unlike the last time I did a tempo run, I didn't have a middle mile where I felt like I was absolutely going to die--my times were generally pretty consistent. Here are my splits:

Mile 1: 8:07

(I was a good little runner and followed Spencer's advice, plus he's been riding his bike to the mile markers and calling out our times for us, so I knew he'd know if I overran the first mile)

Mile 2: 7:58
Mile 3: 7:56
Mile 4: 8:04
Mile 5: 8:03
Mile 6: 7:59
Mile 7: 8:01
Mile 8: 7:39 (for .97 miles allegedly so the pace was 7:55 min/mile)

For those of you not familiar with tempo runs, here are some interesting articles that describe this particular brand of running torture.

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-267--11909-1-1-2,00.html

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=5615&PageNum=1

So now, we have just one more tempo run before we taper. The marathon is approaching so quickly...just 5 more weeks to go from Sunday!!