Whew! My longest tempo run thus far has been 4 miles. The funny thing is that I really started to struggle just before 2 miles. I mean I was struggling! I did not want to continue. I seriously thought about breaking the 5 miles up into 2 + 2 +1. But I kept going through the 2 mile split. Then I was thinking that 3 + 2 would be a good idea. I was just struggling to hold on. And I made the mistake of cranking out a 1:30 first quarter on the 3rd mile. I'm not sure what happened there. That made the rest of the mile difficult!
Then, when I began the 4th mile, I was cruising! It was like a switch flipped! The miles and the pace felt EASY!! I have no idea what happened on those last two miles. It felt great!!
Beginning at about mile 2.5, I just started saying to myself over and over... "Do what they won't so that when it counts you can do what they can't." (Thanks, EC) And... "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." Over and over I repeated those two sentences in my head. And it started to feel easier. Honest.
Really, though, I should say, "Do what you don't want so that when it counts you can do what you once couldn't", and "The will to qualify means nothing without the will to prepare." Winning races and outrunning other runners is another level that I'm not sure I'm talented enough to reach. Maybe I'll get an AG win occasionally if I'm lucky. But the idea was to repeat motivational quotes and it worked today.
The workout was 10 miles total with 3 miles warm up, 5 miles tempo, and 2 miles cool down. Tempo splits below. The miles on that track are a little long, like 1.01 and 1.02, 5.08 total, so the average pace was 6:48 according to my Garmin.
- 7:00
- 6:55
- 6:46
- 6:54
- 6:52
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