4.44 mile Pace Run - Went very well!

It was cooler today, and that certainly helped my run. Roughly 19 degrees C. with a bit of very light rain. I ran home from the office (much of it downhill), targeting 7:49 per k. But I couldn't go that slow! Here are my splits:

7:34 (flat)
7:35 (flat to downhill)
7:37 (downhill)
7:40 (uphill to flat)
7:38 (flat to uphill - 0.44 miles)

7:36 average pace. Considering that I would have been pleased with a 7:49 pace, I was super-pleased with this result.

5.68 Mile Tempo Run around Gibbons Park

We had an interesting route today, in preparation for a bunch of folks doing a race tomorrow night. I treated it as a tempo run, though, and it went okay. Definitely not flat, but it worked out okay Here are my splits:

8:28
8:28
8:27
7:35
7:30
7:31 (0.68 miles)

I was looking for 7:30's for the second half of the run, but that first mile at "tempo" had significant uphill (from the park, uphill on St. James St. to St. George) and I couldn't quite hit my times. But I was pleased with the remainder of the run.

8:01 average pace for the full distance.

Easy Run - 4.42 miles (from home to work)

It's been just over 12 hours since speed work -- hardly enough time for my muscles to recover. But I know that I have a tempo run tomorrow, so the extra 8 hours of rest before that run could make it go better. And since I really didn't have to push and particular pace on this run, I figured it would be better to have a "bad" easy run in the hopes I would have a "good" tempo run tomorrow. This route is mostly uphill, so it definitely isn't easy from a topology perspective. Here are my splits:

8:42 (mostly flat)
8:31 (a bit downhill, a bit uphill)
8:44 (uphill)
8:41 (uphill)
8:33 (0.42 miles -- mostly flat)

Not great, and I was drenched at the end, but I'll take it.

Speed Work - 6 x 800 m. repeats

Sounds easy -- just 4.8 km of total "speed" pace. But by the time we were done, it was all I could do to come close to my target pace.

I was hoping for a pace of 6:30 per mile or roughly 3:15 per 800 m. Here are my splits:

3:09
3:18
3:18
3:19
3:17
3:19

So the average for all 6 repeats was 3:16.7 per 800 m. Not great, but not terrible. I finished all 6 repeats, though, which isn't bad considering I wanted to bail at 5. My general mode, now, is that I keep doing the repeats until my time totally falls apart on one of them. Then I pull the plug on he workout, because that is when injuries are most likely to occur.

Looking back at January, my times have definitely improved so far. Back then I did 5 x 600 m. repeats in a tiny bit over 2:30 per repeat. Straight line extrapolation would put that at 3:20 per 800 m. or 4:10 per kilometre. So knocking these off consistently in less than 3:20 (and outside, not on the track) is pretty good.

Long run - 13.5 miles in the heat

Today, it was a challenge to just get through the 13.5 mile long run in London. We took it easy, stopping at most water stops along the way. Here are my splits:

8:55
8:54
8:30
8:34
8:46
9:06
9:12
8:48
8:38
8:32
8:34
8:34
8:43
8:38 pace (0.51 miles)

Overall pace was 8:44.

It was about 29 degrees when we finished and muggy throughout the entire run. The only saving grace was that because we were running along the paths beside the river, there was a fair bit of shade along the route. Jenny led the way back for the most part. The heat wasn't a problem for her.

Anyhow, nothing to brag about, but we got through it.

5 mile "pace" run...

The goal today was to do a short warm-up run, and then 5 miles at marathon pace. If I want to do the Corning Wineglass Marathon in 3:25, I need to be hitting 7:49 per mile x 26.2 miles. Here were my splits this morning:

2:47 (8:58 pace) 0.31 miles
7:43
7:48
7:50
7:48
5:46 (8:20 pace) 0.69 miles

My average pace for the entire run was 7:53.

I had to walk after the third mile, and it took everything I had to complete the fourth. I felt like I was going to puke afterwards. The lose gravel along much of miles 1 and 2 didn't help my speed, and the wind in my face on that last mile definitely didn't help either. So I got my 5 miles in, but only 4 were at pace, and I had a walk break in between miles 3 and 4.

Good thing its early in the training!

8 mile Tempo Run - 3.5 miles at pace...

Jenny and I joined the Runners Choice Marathon Training Group at Gibbons Park for a run down to the former Guy Lombardo Museum (now a library or community centre or something). Anyhow, it was 4 miles there and 4 miles back. I ran with John DePutter and Jenn Vording for a good chunk of the way, although they left me in the dust for the last mile. My goal was 8:30's out and 7:30's back. And eventually I'd like to get to 8:20s out and 7:20s back. Here are my split paces:

8:17
8:14
8:10
8:11
7:22
7:25
7:22
7:50 (1/2 mile)
8:22 (1/2 mile)

7:53 average pace. So the good news is that I couldn't go slow enough to do 8:30s -- and on the way out, I was actually closer to 8:15s. The bad news is that the run back was mostly upstream. I had to take a break at the forks of the Thames (about 2.7 miles back). And then after I did the hill at the north end of Harris Park, I had nothing left to get my pace back down to the 7:30 range. I took a walk break and then jogged back at 8:22 pace.

It took me a while to get used to my Garmin Forerunner 210. Every time it flipped over to a new lap, it was like it was starting the calculation all over again. It would take me until I was halfway through the lap before I could trust my lap pace.