Tempo Run

Despite having made my feelings about treadmills clear, last night I ran on ours because I was scheduled to do a tempo run and it’s much easier to control my speed on the treadmill. You don’t even have to think about how fast you’re running and ‘not thinking’ is something that I’m good at. I began with a mile warm up at a 10:30 minute mile pace. Then I did six tempo miles at a 9 minute mile pace (which is my goal pace for the upcoming Bolder Boulder) and finished with a cool down mile at 10:30 pace again.

While it was encouraging to run 6 miles at close to my goal pace it was a little discouraging how tired it made me feel and I couldn’t escape the thought that if I’d have been running outside I would have slowed down. As I mentioned, the good thing about the treadmill (if there is one) is that when you set it to a 9 minute mile pace you have to keep running at that speed or you fall off the back and hurt yourself. Especially, if you live dangerously like I do and don’t clip the safety key/kill switch to your shirt. I find that living on the edge like that keeps me sharp. I’ll leave my seatback slightly reclined during takeoff and landing without batting an eyelid, and I even signed the waiver on the back of my race bib without reading it! You know what I waived? Me either! Seriously, I didn’t read it and I think I’m the better for it.

With this tempo run over my tapering has officially started (see previous post) and that really sucks because it means that I’m running less which in turn means that I’m burning less calories than I’m used to. I have more free time because I’m not running as often or as far in the evenings, but the one thing that I do to fill my free time is eat, and that’s going to hurt me.

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