After talking to my aunt who has been running for years and has done 5 1/2's this year and has run the Chicago marathon and done several triathlons I have decided to not just run each time I go out. I've been reading blogs for awhile and I see people doing tempo runs and long, slow runs and all that stuff, but I just assumed that I wasn't that advanced and I just needed to run. And then I got bored. And I felt like I wasn't improving, all of my runs were the same pace, I felt like I was dying if I tried to go any faster, and I felt discouraged. She told me that she had been a 10 min miler for 10 years. She never really worked at it, that's just how she ran. Then she started running with a friend and this friend did tempo runs. My aunt started doing them with her and now runs 8:30 miles.
So I did my first tempo run (I think, I don't know if I have the correct terminology) on Wednesday. Then today I ran 5 miles slower than I have been running "normally". I set the Garmin to chirp at me when I was going faster than 11:00 min/mile. I did the same thing last week and it chirped at me a lot. This week, not so much! I had no problem slowing down. I don't know if it was because I was really focusing on it or if it would've been a crappy run if I was trying to run "normal". Either way I felt good the whole time until the last quarter mile I started to feel really tired. I ended up only running a little over 5 miles in an hour which seems so incredibly slow compared to all of you, but hopefully it will help me actually get faster. That's the logic right? We'll see.
TMI and My Mind is Blown
5 months ago
Good luck with the tempo runs! I have my first tempo run in another week as part of my 10k training plan - also have speedwork, Can't wait to see the effect on my overall pacing!
ReplyDeleteThat's what my training is consisting of. My 5K race pace is 8:26 but I run 3 days a week between 10:30-11 min miles. One day I run 3 miles at a race speed. It has been working really well for me. Good luck to you :)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good plan. I am just finishing a beginner running program. And I had to work up a plan with some new goals or I knew I would have trouble keeping it up. It is so much easier to be disciplined when you have an assignment. And it is so much more fun when you see progress.
ReplyDeleteHmm... maybe I should give this a try, too! I feel like no matter what I am just stuck running at the same pace. I've slowly been getting faster, but after a year I feel like I should have crossed over into something a tad more impressive. Perhaps these faster people are onto something after all! :-)
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