A Tempo Run

Disclaimer:  My brain is fuzzy today.  I think I need more sleep.

After registering for my first full marathon this morning, I finally sat down with several training plans and came up with a schedule.  27 weeks until race day.

On tap for today was a Tempo Run.  I had never done a tempo run before and my Garmin hasn't arrived yet, so this took some planning and calculation.  I do have a GPS for my Polar HRM, but it only gives real time speed (mph).  That meant I had to calculate what my speed should be at different paces.  What the plan actually called for was a warm up mile, 4 miles at 8:47 pace and then a cool down mile.  I decided the warm up and cool down would be at about a 10:15 pace making my warm up/cool down speed approximately 5.8 mph and my tempo speed around 6.85 mph.  And then I thought about it. 

What I realized was that although I can do an 8:47 pace, I don't typically run faster than a 9:00 pace with the Bob Duallie and both girls.  I revised the plan and shortened my run a bit because I've got a 10K Race plus a 2 Mile Run on Saturday.  Additionally, I decided that I need to work with ranges because my speed can vary significantly based on hills and the wind. 

Here's what I ended up with:
Warm-up:  1 mile at approx 5.4-5.8 mph
Tempo:  2 miles at approx 6.5-7.1 mph
Cool-down: 1 mile at approx 5.4-5.8 mph

Overall the run went well.  I got stuck at a light for a while and Angel Girl lost a shoe at one point (that required some backtracking).  It was nice to vary my speed and to push myself more during those 2 miles.  I felt like I was going soooo slow during that warm up mile, but I was ready for the cool down pace by the end of the tempo miles.  

The end of the run is another story entirely because Angel Girl had a complete and total meltdown and at one point was lying in the middle of the street (luckily a cul-de-sac).  The rest of the morning was equally as dramatic but this isn't really a blog about that.