Thursday, August 4, 2011

NYC Marathon Week#5: Superb Tempo Night

Wednesday's training schedule required completion of 35 minutes of tempo work. The plan meant 10 minutes of warm up and 20 minutes of easing into the tempo pace and then 5 minutes of cool down.  What actually happened was: 10 minutes of warm (I mile @ 9:48 pace) + 21 minutes of tempo (2.58 miles) +10 minutes of cool down (1 mile @ 9:55 pace).  What’s with the fraction, you ask? I had my ipod on and didn’t realize I already went over. So that was my delayed reaction.  That’s a sign that I wasn’t pushing it tonight, yet I achieved what I wanted to do. In the past, when I’ve done tempo, I would grimace in strain of pushing it and then couldn’t wait to reach the end.  Last night’s experience was totally different. I was more relaxed. If I didn’t know any better, I think this is progress here.

I joined my distance club in their warm up and form drills before embarking on my own workout. I was mighty tempted to do their workout. They did, 1000x2, 800x2, 400x3, with lap recoveries. I stayed behind and waited until all of them took off so I won’t be pulled into their fast paces.   I had to stick to my plan which was to complete 10 laps (400m) between 2:00 or 2:07.  That equates to a 8:00-8:33 pace.  I know it was a huge range, but I was giving myself time to ease into it. I had to stay relaxed and focused while fast guys lapped me once or twice.  This is good practice for racing—to be unfazed, just do my own “thang”.

When all was said and done, my average pace for each lap came to 2:06 or 8:23 pace. Very happy about that. Moreover, I wore my heart rate monitor. It stayed at 85%.  But I can’t use this as a benchmark since I was the big dummy.  I recently had to do a master reset for the watch since it was going nuts. Since then I had never reset the user profile to fit my statistics. That meant, that it was calculating the HR using the default, whatever that may be.  Next time, it will be ready.

Ah yes, another workout done! 93 days to NYC.

Happy running!

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