Tempo run

I woke up after a reasonable night's sleep and I felt good. I felt better than good as I was full of energy and raring to go. I was also feeling guilty and had been thinking about my morning run from last night and how I could compensate for the lack of interval training from the marathon plan for both Monday and Tuesday. I finally decided on a tempo run. A run at threshold pace around the usual circuit and to see how I would cope.

I literally hit the street running and set off at a decent clip down the road. The weather was clear and cold and the sun had not yet risen to warm up the air. I ran down to the river and it was too dark to see my pace when the autolap beeped to indicate the end of the first kilometre. I had negotiated the track in the dark and now I was flying along the road beside the river, opening up as I no longer had to worry about potholes and twisting my ankle. The garmin beeped again for the second kilometre and I still couldn't see what pace I was doing but it felt not so much fast, as uncomfortable. I figured that I was running about 15km/h and I could manage this for 4km before I would need a break.

The discomfort grew as I pushed on and by 4km I allowed myself to slow down, figuring that I would accelerate again after a couple of minutes and try and run a second 4km at this pace. I'd seen that my pace was just under 4:00 for the last kilometre and I allowed myself a little relaxation before starting again. This section I ran into the park and the path towards the castle. This is my favourite spot and it was no hardship to run fast along here. In fact, I felt so good here that I didn't stop again, my muscles warming up to the pace and the discomfort. I pushed the pace all of the way back to the house, telling myself that I could create a new record for completing this circuit.

I ran back to the house in 51:50, completing the 12.9km at an average pace of 4:01/km. I felt great and not even that tired. The kilometres went as follows:

3:55, 3:58, 3:54, 3:59, 4:30, 4:11, 3:58, 4:00, 3:59, 3:59, 4:03, 3:57 and then 3:39 pace to the end.

The guilty feeling had gone and a big smile of satisfaction had replaced it.