Tempo Tuesday

Ha!  Perfect!  (I just came up with that, I easily impress myself...although I'm sure I will find out that 200 other bloggers had come up with that before me...)

I feel like I'm finally seeing some clarity in my training right now.  Up until this morning I have been flailing about a bit, unsure of where and when to proceed.  Most of the half marathon training programs I have found are only 16 week courses, which wouldn't even have me starting training until October or something.  On top of that, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with 4 miles right now and most training plans have you start at 2-3 mile short runs.  They also have you running 3-4 times a week, which my body does not seem to recover well from.

So, this morning I headed out for my run and I was waffling a bit on what I wanted to do.  I had decided, at least for now, that I want to stick to my 2x running a week with cross training.  This left me wondering exactly HOW I should run?  I decided that if I was going to do 2 runs a week for now, one should be a tempo run while the other a distance.  It sounded just right! 

I headed out the door at 6:40 and it was a gorgeous morning.  In the 60s, windy (which I happen to like, it blows some of that sweat off my face! LOL) and cloudy...those gorgeous blue/gray clouds you get before the sun is totally up.

I headed towards the park/graveyard  route that I knew would be about 4 miles.  Since I wanted to work on my speed, I was doing a little self talking that first mile.  I noticed I tend to get overwhelmed with the task ahead and start thinking how much MORE 4 miles is when I haven't even gotten to 1 mile.  I also wanted to speed up a bit, so I was having to focus on speeding up my steps without extending my gait...b/c I heel strike when I extend my gait.  I was pretty in my head, chattering away about "quick feet", "knees bent", "not even to a mile yet" when I realized that I just needed to get back to my mantra and SETTLE into it.  Stop thinking so much!  This is supposed to be relaxing and your time alone.

I did relax, and rounded the lake and headed up the hill to the cemetery.  I looked at my garmin quite a few times and saw 9:30, but I knew I had to be careful not to push too fast when I still had 3 miles to go. 

I ran through the cemetery and down into town.  I live in a really small town of 4000, but that makes it pretty easy in the mornings to just run the streets and not have to worry about tons of cars.  (although there was a woman just last summer that was hit on the outer road while training for a marathon, and she died, so I keep my music down enough to hear cars!)   My pace was looking good and I was settling into it as I headed over the tracks.  I do think I slow down a bit when I settle into my runs, but I felt like I had to balance speed and distance in order to not go overboard?  I'm new to this, so I'm really just trying to figure it all out.

I decided to detour a bit and go up a couple streets, just for a change of scenery.  When I got near 3.1, I started watching the garmin and was slightly annoyed that I didn't seem to be going really much faster than normal.  I pushed myself a little more and hit 3.1 at 33:41. (that's only 19 seconds faster than the 5K I ran with Dallas a couple Saturday's ago)

I slowed down a bit to catch my breath and then really got into my groove.  I feel like AFTER 3 miles is when I really get comfortable and feel like I could keep going.  When I neared home, I wanted to sprint a bit to finish off my run.  I'm glad I did because I was starting to flirt with the idea of continuing to run and I REALLY need to stick with it here and be patient!  Training doesn't happen overnight. 

Got in a good sprint on my street and finished up with 4.4 miles.

47:51 is a 10:52 min mile, so I did speed up my time a bit, but jeez, just by seconds.  I'm hoping that using my Tuesday runs to work on my pace and my Friday (or Saturday, depending on work/weather) runs for distance, will help me in my training. 

I purposely didn't run in my compression socks this morning because I only have 1 pair and I wanted them clean for AFTER my run.  I HAVE to get more of these, I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! They are Runningskirts compression socks. 

the hearts are too cute, even though they stretch a bit on larger calves like mine...but that makes them all the tighter and they feel fantastic after my run. 

That's my Tempo Tuesday report.  Anyone else have words of wisdom for my tempo training???  Did you ever feel like you were just gaining a few SECONDS when you started trying to improve your pace?