Getting back up to tempo
This morning I was in for a bit of a rude awakening. I hadn’t done any speed work in a month, and yet I still thought the tempo run sounded like fun. The warm-up and drills were uneventful, and we all got lined up at the zero marker. My plan today was to stick with a couple of the fast guys as long as I could. That turned out to be just one mile. Ugh! By the bridge I was breathing hard, and on top of that my heart rate strap had slid down and while trying to move it back into position it came undone, so I ended up just carrying it. When I reached MoPac and made the turnaround and saw lots of strong runners still behind me, so that was nice, but I didn’t have any pick-up from there. Fortunately, no one caught me, though. I felt like I was really dragging by the last mile (and I was, comparatively, turning in a 6:44). That’s a bit backwards since we’re supposed to speed up at the end. I ended up with 25:51, and if someone told me a couple years ago that one day I’d be disappointed with a time like that I’d have laughed at them. I guess it’s all perspective. I think next time I’ll start off just a bit more conservatively.