Training for 7/25/13

This morning, I actually did a tempo run! I’m still a little shocked myself.

There was no excuse to skip it and just do another easy run, like I’ve been doing. I don’t have a race this coming weekend, and the weather was the best for running I’ve seen around here in several weeks — upper 60s and overcast! It was still a bit on the humid side, and it was windy, but it can’t be perfect.

It was such a nice morning, I decided to take Pepper with me. I made a mistake though — I tried to leave the house with him when Clark was still home (he just got back from Chicago last night.) We didn’t even get to the end of the lane before Pepper was circling back and leaping on me. I didn’t feel like fighting him today, so I just took him back in the house. I’m sure the panic set in when Clark left for work two minutes later and Pepper realized he was alone.

I wore the Garmin for the workout today. I did an easy mile at an 8:51 pace to warm up. Today’s tempo run was supposed to be 35 minutes, so I made a note of the 8:51 on the timer when the distance field hit one mile, and sped up for the next 35 minutes.

It’s amazing how much better it feels to try to run faster when you can actually breathe! I kept the pace comfortably hard, and covered 4.77 miles in 35 minutes, a 7:20/mile average. I doubt I’ve run a sustained pace under 8:00/mile outside of a race in weeks. It was great!

I pulled back on the pace for a cool down, and finished the entire 7.3-mile loop in 56:17, an overall average pace of 7:43/mile. I was more than pleased with that today.

Pepper was relieved to be released from his Fortress of Solitude again, at least until I had to leave for work.

Since I’ve managed to once again stick to my training schedule this week, tomorrow should be a rest day. But I’d really like to make Sunday my rest day, because I have a feeling we’ll be down at the beach this weekend. So I’m doing the 6-mile marathon pace run tomorrow instead, and then this week’s 13-mile long run Saturday morning.

I’m going to have to move up next week’s long run too, since we’re going to the NASCAR race in Pocono next weekend. I should probably just never schedule long runs for Sunday mornings.