Miles 255.5-260.5: First Tempo Run

In weather related news, we are now on our second evening of rain. Even my Gmail account reflects the deluge of storms.

Today's schedule called for a 5-mile tempo run, with 3 of the miles at 8:54/mile pace.

The first time I read this schedule, I stared at the word tempo. The word recalls memories of third grade band practices where our wiry bearded music teacher beat a drumstick against a cowbell to keep time.

Tempo. Run. WTF?

After Googling "tempo run," I read the first returned result, a 1999 Running Times Magazine article. Insights gained: a tempo run aims to increase lactate threshold by forcing you to sustain a "comfortably hard" pace for 20 minutes, bookended by 15 minutes of warm up and cool down.

Second returned result, a 2007 Runner's World How-To added this physiological nugget: "During tempo runs, lactate and hydrogen ions--by-products of metabolism--are released into the muscles [...]. The ions make the muscles acidic, eventually leading to fatigue. The better trained you become, the higher you push your "threshold," meaning your muscles become better at using these byproducts. The result is less-acidic muscles (that is, muscles that haven't reached their new "threshold"), so they keep on contracting, letting you run farther and faster."

Until today, I had never attempted an actual tempo run. I had always feared that I would not be able to maintain the required pace consistently, that I would either run too fast or too slow and then compensate as the time ticked down to make up for being either grossly winded or too far behind pace.  And since (even despite recent successful encounters) my relationship with the treadmill is tenuous at best, the idea of running, as the schedule suggests, a mile to warm up, three miles at roughly 6.8 mph, and another mile to cool down all on a conveyor belt seemed ludicrous. Ludicrous, even though the treadmill would obviously force me to run at the designated speed for the training run.

I presumed my new watch would allow even me, a newbie to the tempo run, to exercise control over my pace and accomplish the goal of pushing the LT envelope without having to trod on the machine. Because of said storm, however, the treadmill won out over the watch.

Despite my nerves, it was a startling success.

I ran the first mile at a 10 minute pace, the next three at 8:35-8:50 minute pace, and the final mile back a 10 minute pace.

Miles 255.5-260.5: Erin 1, Treadmill 0.