Ease Into Speed

On Wednesday I went for an 8.6 mile easy run along a similar route to Monday's run except that I cut across Inchagaggin Lane between the Straight Road and the Model Farm Road to take 2.8 miles off the loop. I felt comfortable throughout the run finishing in 01:07:37 (07:52 pace @ 139 HR) My average HR was high because the HR monitor did not record over the warmup mile (no sweat) This morning I had planned a Tempo run, however I was undecided on how fast and how far to run. Mcmillian indicates a Tempo pace for me of between 06;46 to 07:04. It also gives paces of 06:41 to 06:55 for tempo intervals (not sure how long these should last for). The last time I did tempo runs the pace was 07:00 to 07:10 for 20 minutes. Jack Daniels Running Formula recommends reduced tempo paces as duration exceeds 20 minutes. I thought I might cover 4 miles at an average pace of 06;50 and see how that goes. I woke later than planned (I still don't want to use an alarm clock) at 0625 and so it was a bit of a rush to get out the door. I was unsure whether I could go from groggy to tempo run mode after two warmup miles. I started off covering the 2 warmup mile in 08:23 and 07:46. I increased the pace to sub-7 minutes after the second mile constantly checking the pace on my watch . At the end of the first mile was the only real hill in the tempo section (about 100 to 120 m long - but steep) The pace slowed down to 07:55 as I neared the top - first mile in 06:52 (so far so good). The second fast mile was a long gradual downhill/flat section which I covered in 06:37 (a bit fast but ok). At this stage I was feeling the effort:- "This is faster than my 5 mile PB pace of 06:43 and it is only a training run. I'm not going to get to 4 miles at this pace without feeling it afterwards". I decided that I would cover 1 more mile at this pace before easing up on the pace. The 3rd mile was along the straight road which is flat. I covered this mile in 06:36. I decided to run on to a landmark that I could pick up on Google Earth ("I'll measure the distance afterwards" - I had a suspicion that I covered more distance than the watch recorded, based on the fact that it tends to under record when the pace increases). I eased off the pace and completed the remaining miles at between 07:50 and 08:00 pace covering 8.6 miles in total (same loop as yesterday's run except in reverse) in 01;04:27 (07:30 pace @ 144 HR) The recorded distance was low by 0.1 mile when I finally stopped (not alot, but enough). The 3.07 recorded fast miles turned out to be 3.12 miles on Google Earth, which I covered in 20:40 (06:37 pace @ avg HR of 159). The avg HR for the last fast mile was 164 indicating that the effort was getting more difficult to maintain. This is equivalent to 20:35 for 5k -while over a minute over my PB it's enough for a training run. If I kept this pace up for 5 miles I would have got a PB (33:05). Methinks I went a bit too fast for a tempo run.