A Final Hard Run Before the TC 10 Mile

Yesterday was my last big/hard workout before next weekend’s TC 10 Mile! It was 6x (3 mins hard, 3 mins moderate).

That was a “Coach Jen” workout from 13 years ago, and I didn’t realize it before today, but I did that workout twice exactly 1 year ago. But those times, I did only 5 instead of 6. It’s a workout that sounds easy but really SUCKS if you do it right: it’s the “moderates” that kill you. There’s no full recovery.

When Jen gave me this workout 13 years ago (when I was younger and in better shape), she noted that my moderate should be 6:30 - 6:40 pace. So I did a little math before my workout yesterday to note that 0.45 miles in 3:00 is 6:40 pace. That wasn’t going to be a “goal” necessarily, but I’d be shooting for something like that. (And then 7:00 pace which seems MUCH slower is very close in distance at about 0.43 miles!)

I took off and my first one felt fast. I was already happily thinking I’d be suffering appropriately later in this workout. Below are my splits for the workout. The RED are my hard efforts, and the ORANGE are my moderate efforts:

The final moderate was up Marshall hill, so that’s why it was the slowest!

I was decently happy with that. The efforts were 0.53, 0.53, 0.53, 0.54, 0.54, and 0.52 miles over 3 mins (the last one being up the hill into St. Paul on River Road, so it was a bit shorter), and my moderate “rests” were 0.45, 0.45, 0.44, 0.44, 0.45, and 0.43 miles (again, up a hill so it was shorter). My pace chart shows the hill near the middle of the last effort, and my heart rate chart shows that my HR never dropped far during my moderate “rests” (and how low it dropped kept climbing throughout):

Out-and-back, so you only really see numbers 4, 5, and 6 here.
(And they are highlighted by the red arrows directly next to them.)

Notice on the map the green pace near the end of the final effort - that was climbing back into St. Paul. And then I tried to pick it up to run to the finish of that one, but only got to “light orange” for my pace color.

Now, the slight bad news... I was happy with this workout right after having finished, but then I was a little bummed to see that I did it last year with similar splits. Sure, I only did 5 last year instead of 6 this year, but I didn't have a great TC 10 Mile last year, and I felt like I've been ready to kill the TC 10 this year. So this was a bit of a confidence drainer, not a booster.

My long runs have been SO much better, and I've been doing MUCH more regular speed work this year. So I'm still hoping for a better TC 10 Mile than last year, but who knows. Back with more shortly...