April 17, 2014

Race pace run

Jerry was off work today, and I really wanted to skip my run to stay at home and have a lazy breakfast with him. Instead, I decided to just head out early--half an hour before the kids had to leave for school. That way I could be back home by 8:30 ish.

Usually, I do my tempo runs on the treadmill, because it's easier to maintain a constant pace, but today was absolutely gorgeous outside! The snow has melted, thankfully, and it was in the low-30's (which is my favorite for running). I put on some light long-sleeved clothing and headed out for a tempo run.

In the Hansons' programs, a "tempo" is just another way of saying "race pace". Normally, I think of a tempo run as a pace that you could sustain for about an hour, but Hansons defines it differently. So today, I had a 5-mile tempo run on the schedule, plus warm-up and cool down. Since I just changed my training paces, my half-marathon pace would be 9:00-9:10 per mile.

I ran the first mile as a warm-up, and then picked up the pace to around 9:00/mi. I don't know why I get nervous to do these runs! I was checking my watch every 30 seconds or so, as if I was going to keel over and die if I didn't hit my target pace ;) After about a half-mile of that, I decided that I could only check my pace every quarter-mile. Since I know the exact distances of everything on my route (ask any runner the quarter-mile splits from home, and they can tell you the exact telephone poles, fire hydrants, and pot holes in the roads!), I started looking every quarter mile and adjusting my pace as necessary.

It was harder than I thought to maintain that as a constant pace. I went too fast, and then I noticed I was running 8:45-ish, so I slowed down and realized I was running 9:20-ish, and then I picked it back up again. Rather than a constant pace, which is the goal of this "tempo" run, I was doing a lot of ups and downs. I hit pretty close to my goal pace for each split, though!


Once I hit mile 6, I slowed to a cool down pace. I should have cooled down for about a mile, but I just wanted to get home, so I took a shortcut. I felt really good about today's run! I've been feeling so discouraged about my pace lately, it was nice to meet my goal pace without any problems today.

Jerry and I had breakfast and tea, and then we headed to Sam's Club. We usually go to a Sam's that's about 35 minutes north of us, but today, we decided to change it up and go down to the Sam's in Toledo. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get there (probably 50 minutes), but it was kind of fun going somewhere different.

We got the stuff we needed, and it was noon when we got out of there, so we headed down the street to Panera for lunch. I got their black bean soup--it doesn't look very good, but it's one of my favorites!


I didn't realize it until I uploaded this picture, but you can see Jerry's face in the spoon ;)

After lunch, we went into Party City so that I could get a tutu for my brother. Yes, my brother. He's going to be running the Glass City Relay with us a week from Sunday, and since he's the only guy on the team, he agreed to wear a tutu! They had a rainbow colored one, and I thought it looked really cute on Hilary during Ragnar SoCal, so I bought that for myself; and I got Nathan a purple one. I'm so excited for the relay, because I really like the other girls people on the team (Jeanie's friends Jen and Deb, who were on last year's team; Audrey, who I just ran with for her first half-marathon; and my brother, Nathan).

My kids are having a friend spend the night tonight, so things are a little chaotic around here! Here is yesterday's food log:


Now I'm going to go for a walk with the kids to the corner store. That's Eli's favorite thing to do when they have friends over!

10 comments:

  1. There is nothing better than a good run! Even if I hate it the whole time I'm doing it, haha!!

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  2. How many daily points do you get a day?

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  3. Thank you for posting your food log... I know you think it's crazy but it's so helpful and so inspiring!

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  4. Sounds like a perfect run! Also, I was nominated for a Liebster award. My answers to 10 questions will post to my blog tomorrow. I needed to nominate more people. I have not "connected" with a lot of other bloggers, but chose to nominate you. I love reading your blog each night! Hope you'll check it out!

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    1. Katie, I checked out your blog but didn't see a way to subscribe...did I miss something?

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  5. So glad the weather cleared up enough for you to get out and enjoy your run! I think I might have to check out Party City here myself for a tutu for my upcoming Revenge of the 5th 5K on May 5th. It's a virtual race, so I'm going to look insane anyway going out to the trail in a racing bib and tutu. But I don't care!

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  6. I love that your brother agreed to wear a tutu. That's awesome! And I think your soup looks delicious!

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  7. I'll be running the half at GCM also! Good luck girl and maybe I'll see ya there!

    ~Maren

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  8. Gosh, forgot to post marenwill22.tumblr.com just incase you're interested in checking out my progress toward the GCM half marathon :) Congrats on all your training!

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  9. I love that your brother is willing to wear a tutu--that's a real man!! :)

    "ask any runner the quarter-mile splits from home, and they can tell you the exact telephone poles, fire hydrants, and pot holes in the roads!"

    Ha ha ha, so true!!!

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I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

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