Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Increasing the Tempo

Today I was scheduled to do a tempo run -- 7 miles at a 7:41 pace, with a 1 mile warm up and cool-down on either side. I set my goal pace to be 7:30/mile (4:41/k). Brian met me at our house at 6:30 am and we took off down to the speed work area on William Street. He was to do four 1-mile repeats and although I don't remember his target pace, he mentioned that one of his miles he did in under 6 minutes, which was a personal best for him.

For my miles, though, I was going to be happy if they were all faster than 7:30 -- and they were: 7:13, 7:25, 7:28, 7:27, 7:17, 7:23 and 7:13. I was particularly pleased that my last mile was as quick as my first at 7:13/mile (4:31/k) and I felt strong the whole way! My average pace over the 7 tempo miles (11.2 km) was 7:21 (4:36/k) -- so if I was doing a 10k race, I'd have completed it in 46 minutes -- a personal best time by over a minute!

Beyond that it was an uneventful run. We saw the white squirrel again -- and now I have a witness! The weather is starting to get a bit cooler -- around 64 degrees F. (18 C.) made it quite comfortable for a short run.

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