Tempo Tuesday ... On a Monday
Crazy fucker!
Ummed and arred today about what to do. I must admit confidence isn't soaring going into Wednesday. Like I said yesterday, I'm fitter through longer & consistent training time but I'm not feeling faster.
Today decided to do a 2 mile tempo, just as a confidence boost really. Saturdays hungover Parkrun had me wondering if it was even possible to run flat 6s !!
Easy 3 mile shake out this morning (after a solid hour s & c session). Felt good but a little 'leggy'.
Chilled after doing my chores and into the run nice and early. Plan was to run to the lake and do 2 miles of tempo there (it's just under half a mile per loop).
Jogged to warm up. 7.15/mm for the first mile feeling easy and HR nice and low. Stopped and stretched to give the HR enough recovery to get something meaningful pace wise.
Plan for the tempo was 160 bpm first mile then lift to 170 bpm for the second,
Out quick on the loop and the pace is nice and the HR climbs under control but a little quick for my liking. Within half a mile I'm at around 5:45/mm pace and holding back as it's creeping to 164 bpm. Over the next half mile the pace drops a little as the effort to hold back HR shows and the mile is up in 5:49/mm @ 163 bpm. On the second mile around the lap I make the decision to head back down the trail that I came in on. It's a net down hill, and the pace is 5:30/mm for the first half mile. That drops over the last half mile as a) I need to keep a lid on the HR and b) underfoot is dog shit. I'd miscalculated when the rep was finished and ended up on the shitty rutted path back to Bourn. Mile comes up in 5:40/mm for 172 bpm.
Jogged back nice and slow and felt pretty good coming back.
2 miles @ 5:45/mm @ 167 bpm. That's rock solid.
I must admit I was very happy to finish and that did feel initially a bit harder than I had hoped. Certainly the HR is OK - I'd expect 2 miles on Wednesday to be 170 bpm. Saying that, I think a lot of it is mental doing a solo tempo at a good pace. Personally I think if I had done a 3 mile tempo at the same effort and sacked at 2 miles I'd have been fine. It's one of those things about just wanting to get it over - even when I'm enjoying runs I have that feeling!
Pace wise - it's fastest I've tempoed at so under 5:50/mm is a bigger effort. More on that later.
Conditions v Wednesday couldn't be more different. This was gravel, grass, trail & hard pact. It's also got little ramps - Wednesday will be tarmac, racing conditions and lots of company. It'll feel a LOT easier.
Barring disaster I expect off the back of that to be roughly same sort of time I ran last time. That's a bit of a shitter but not being in worse shape means I am still in the game. We'll keep coming back for more. Mind you, there's always the possibility I turn up Wednesday but my legs don't !! So I'll be addressing that as much as I can by giving them some TLC between now and the gun.
Back to the issue I addressed. At 170+ bpm things get a little tough. I just don't have the pace, actually surprised I'm running 17s and 4:45s. The only way to fix this is to hit some reps. Probably switching mile reps and 800m. Get the HR up there and tickle 175 bpm. It worked a treat at 160 bpm threshold.
I kinda imagine next week starting on a plan - Tuesday mile reps and Thursday 5 mile threshold. Keep everything else the same and see how that develops.
I'm happy focusing on 5k and below with possibly the odd (and I do mean odd) 10k in there to keep it honest.
So key now is to freshen the legs up. I'd say 5:45/mm pace is a success. I had planned on 5:50/mm at around that HR so I will take that. Hopefully being a bit more fresh on Wednesday will pay off.
Will probably Parkrun Saturday and aim to keep HR threshold-ish. I really want to get threshold pace down to 5:45/mm by end of summer and I enjoyed (even though I was so shit) PR on Saturday.
Ummed and arred today about what to do. I must admit confidence isn't soaring going into Wednesday. Like I said yesterday, I'm fitter through longer & consistent training time but I'm not feeling faster.
Today decided to do a 2 mile tempo, just as a confidence boost really. Saturdays hungover Parkrun had me wondering if it was even possible to run flat 6s !!
Easy 3 mile shake out this morning (after a solid hour s & c session). Felt good but a little 'leggy'.
Chilled after doing my chores and into the run nice and early. Plan was to run to the lake and do 2 miles of tempo there (it's just under half a mile per loop).
Jogged to warm up. 7.15/mm for the first mile feeling easy and HR nice and low. Stopped and stretched to give the HR enough recovery to get something meaningful pace wise.
Plan for the tempo was 160 bpm first mile then lift to 170 bpm for the second,
Out quick on the loop and the pace is nice and the HR climbs under control but a little quick for my liking. Within half a mile I'm at around 5:45/mm pace and holding back as it's creeping to 164 bpm. Over the next half mile the pace drops a little as the effort to hold back HR shows and the mile is up in 5:49/mm @ 163 bpm. On the second mile around the lap I make the decision to head back down the trail that I came in on. It's a net down hill, and the pace is 5:30/mm for the first half mile. That drops over the last half mile as a) I need to keep a lid on the HR and b) underfoot is dog shit. I'd miscalculated when the rep was finished and ended up on the shitty rutted path back to Bourn. Mile comes up in 5:40/mm for 172 bpm.
Jogged back nice and slow and felt pretty good coming back.
2 miles @ 5:45/mm @ 167 bpm. That's rock solid.
I must admit I was very happy to finish and that did feel initially a bit harder than I had hoped. Certainly the HR is OK - I'd expect 2 miles on Wednesday to be 170 bpm. Saying that, I think a lot of it is mental doing a solo tempo at a good pace. Personally I think if I had done a 3 mile tempo at the same effort and sacked at 2 miles I'd have been fine. It's one of those things about just wanting to get it over - even when I'm enjoying runs I have that feeling!
Pace wise - it's fastest I've tempoed at so under 5:50/mm is a bigger effort. More on that later.
Conditions v Wednesday couldn't be more different. This was gravel, grass, trail & hard pact. It's also got little ramps - Wednesday will be tarmac, racing conditions and lots of company. It'll feel a LOT easier.
Barring disaster I expect off the back of that to be roughly same sort of time I ran last time. That's a bit of a shitter but not being in worse shape means I am still in the game. We'll keep coming back for more. Mind you, there's always the possibility I turn up Wednesday but my legs don't !! So I'll be addressing that as much as I can by giving them some TLC between now and the gun.
Back to the issue I addressed. At 170+ bpm things get a little tough. I just don't have the pace, actually surprised I'm running 17s and 4:45s. The only way to fix this is to hit some reps. Probably switching mile reps and 800m. Get the HR up there and tickle 175 bpm. It worked a treat at 160 bpm threshold.
I kinda imagine next week starting on a plan - Tuesday mile reps and Thursday 5 mile threshold. Keep everything else the same and see how that develops.
I'm happy focusing on 5k and below with possibly the odd (and I do mean odd) 10k in there to keep it honest.
So key now is to freshen the legs up. I'd say 5:45/mm pace is a success. I had planned on 5:50/mm at around that HR so I will take that. Hopefully being a bit more fresh on Wednesday will pay off.
Will probably Parkrun Saturday and aim to keep HR threshold-ish. I really want to get threshold pace down to 5:45/mm by end of summer and I enjoyed (even though I was so shit) PR on Saturday.
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