Best. Tempo. Run. Ever.

So I have to say that I was less than enthused about today's workout.  I did a bunch of errands and had to run all over town, which I find tiring (to give you a sense, I spent about an hour and a half driving....we do not kid about the urban sprawl around these parts).  Also, my stomach was kind of upset.  But today was tempo run day, and I know that tempo runs are important, so I dragged myself onto the treadmill.

A tempo run is a term that evidently draws numerous different definitions.  I am using the one that Hal Higdon provides as part of the training program that I am broadly following:

This is a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near 10-K race pace. A Tempo Run of 40 to 60 minutes would begin with 10-20 minutes easy running, build for 20-30 minutes near the middle, then 5-10 minutes easy toward the end. The pace buildup should be gradual, not sudden, with peak speed coming about two-thirds into the workout. Hold that peak only for a minute or two. I consider Tempo Runs to be the "Thinking Runner's Workout." A Tempo Run can be as hard or easy as you want to make it, and it has nothing to do with how long (in time) you run or how far. In fact, the times prescribed for Tempo Runs serve mainly as rough guidelines. Feel free to improvise. Improvisation is the heart of doing a Tempo Run correctly.

My basic approach has been to do a 10-minute warm-up, then divide up the tempo run into whatever interval is an even amount of 5 units, then a 10-minute cool-down.  I have been doing these on the treadmill, which makes it really easy to pace what you are doing, but really hard to cheat your speed.  Also, the weather has been very thunderstormy as of late, so the treadmill is probably the better choice anyway.

Today, I got on the treadmill to do a 40-minute run, even though I was really not enthusiastic about things.  I have been starting relatively slowly although for the past two weeks (since I started this plan), I have still not been able to get through the whole workout.  A walk break was required in the middle of the running fast section.  I would like to note, though, that I usually plan for a walk break at some point on the treadmill because otherwise I tend to overheat.  For the tempo runs, I have been limiting these considerably, but still had to take breaks.

Today, I got through my 10-minute warm-up, then concentrated really hard and got through the building up/building down section.  But I did it!  Two minutes of increasing increments for 10 minutes, then 10 minutes of decreasing increments.  And I made it all the way through!  But that was my limit.  I couldn't handle the cool-down.  I walked for a bit, then decided to stop.

So you can imagine my surprise when I looked again at the training plan and learned that today's tempo run was only supposed to be 30 minutes.  Which means I totally rocked it.  And then some.  Best tempo run ever!

Getting caught up

Last week I was on semi-vacation, touring around various parts of Florida to see spring training games.  I did get to run, but maybe not as much as would be ideal in a perfect situation.  Here is the summary:

1) Monday I did the Long Run of last week's FTL.  Sunday, I was feeling far too tired to actually get up and run, so I postponed it (not to mention that it was the switch to EST).  I did manage to eke out a 45-minute run, which isn't too bad, all things considered.  Actually, I can't really remember the last time I did a 45-minute run, so I'm seeing this as a victory.  It was 'somewhat chilly' when I started: 50F!  Warmed up plenty while I was out, though.

2) Then I didn't do much.

3) Yesterday, I made a plan.  You remember how I mentioned that I want to start doing push-ups?  I found a website that trains you to get from total suckitude at push-ups to 100 in 6 weeks.  You're supposed to do this program three days a week.  I'm also hoping to run three days a week.  So the new plan is that if I don't run, I have to do push-ups.  You might think that this is an obvious answer, since push-ups are easier than running.  However, you are underestimating just how bad I am at push-ups.  The answer is: really super mega-bad.  So I'm hoping that this serves as a good motivator.

4) Today, I toyed around with a variety of things that I could do.  I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately (probably just a cold), so I took the opportunity to sleep in this morning.  Then I decided that later I would maybe hit the treadmill at the gym and do the 'F' portion of this week's FTL.  This decision resulted in 'meh,' though since I needed to be back home to do stuff...okay, I could have done it, but I wasn't feeling it one bit. 

Instead, I did some aqua jogging, using it as my 'T' part.  I did 5 minutes of intense water-running, followed by a two-minute break, repeating this pattern four times (except for the part where I did longer than 5 minutes because the watch did not reset automatically).  Also, I drew an important conclusion: aqua jogging is not as good as running, but that doesn't mean it is cheating.  It's just different.  Not bad.  Different.  Still better than nothing.

Another thing that I realized: we only have five weeks left in this semester.  Then I can develop more of a routine since I won't feel as crunched for time.

Tomorrow I am running a 5k in my neighborhood (the Strawberry Classic), so that should be good.  Not good as in I expect to rock it or anything.  Good in the sense that I don't have to get up super-early or drive super-far.  And it is still running!  I plan to do another 'L' on Sunday, this time working up to 50 minutes.  So yeah, all in all, this past week was not a disaster.

Losing a battle. Not winning the war. At least not yet.

Today I went through a myriad of feelings toward the likelihood of running:

Noon - There is no way in hell I am going running today.
4pm - Maybe I will do my fitness video with Alison.
5pm - Okay, maybe I can handle one pyramid (F of FTL).  Come on.  One pyramid is actually easier than the fitness video.  I can do one pyramid.
5:30pm as I am heading out the door to run - Let's do a tempo run!

No idea where that came from.  And as it turns out, I wasn't quite up for a tempo run, not at this point.  I think that this is due to a combination of factors.  First and foremost: I haven't been running enough to competently do a tempo run.  Coming in second place, though, is weather.  At the same time, weather is a bad excuse because if I run more in warmer temperatures, I will get better at handling them.  So basically I need to run more.

Actually, today I did need to walk.  I got through ~5 minutes of the tempo run and out of nowhere, just started walking--akin to my 'meh' moment on the treadmill a couple of weeks ago.  I walked for 2.5 minutes, then ran another 5, and repeated.  During the 5-minute intervals, I tried to keep up a quicker pace.  And this led me to develop a Plan.

Next time, rather than do a full-out tempo  run, I will cut down the walking time to two minutes, then 1.5, then 1, then 30 seconds, then we will see where we are.  This is great for a number of reasons.  First and foremost: it is a plan.  There.  I have a plan.  Plus it is a reasonable plan.  Second, I can see myself improve as I go, which I hope will be encouraging.  Third, I can program the toy for this plan, so I'll be able to see how things are going with concrete data.

If I had to describe today's tempo run, I would say that I lost the battle, but I'm hoping that I've developed a strategy for the larger War against Running Sloth (or whatever this war is that I am fighting).  Five years ago, when I first started running (whoa!), I realized that it was futile to get mad at yourself when you failed at things.  Instead, it was better to accept that you can only get better if you work from the point where you are.  So yes, I wish that I had kept up the running more over the past month.  But now I have the means to take steps toward improvement.

Also, there is another goal that I am trying to reach, which is to be able to competently do push-ups.  I completely and totally suck at push-ups.  So I've decided to work to get better at them.  I'm not sure if this will in any way help my running, but surely it can't hurt.  In case you're wondering, I managed five today and they were those cheater girl push-ups that are on your knees.  But this is Day 3 of push-ups and they do feel better than Day 1 of push-ups did.  Steps towards improvement, it's all that you can ever do.