Speed Day: Descending Tempo Run

Yesterday was another hard "Coach Jen" workout from my 2010 TC 10 Mile training plan that she wrote for me (back when I was in my 20s). I've been posting about how I've been SURPRISINGLY following the workouts and keeping up with my younger self from 14 years ago! (Here's a post highlighting the first 4 weeks of 10 mile training, and here's a recent post about the 10 days after that.) My biggest failure so far was my speed workout 8 days ago where I was supposed to descending a 4x1 mile interval workout on the track, and I "spent too much" on my first 3 intervals that I didn't have enough left to descend the final one.

Yesterday's workout was my next true SPEED day, so would I be able to redeem myself?

I took off on my run not feeling great. It had been a big week (got over a cold, my wife was/is gone on a trip, lots of running around with the boys), and I was tired. My legs were sluggish. I had pizza the night before. I just felt like that run was going to blow. Hard. It was a few miles of warm-up, and then straight into 4 hard miles starting a BIT easier so each mile could be descended to an "all out" pace.

In the first half mile, I was already telling myself "Alright, this might be like a 3:15 half mile, and that's OK. I don't need to beat my times from 14 years ago - if I just GO HARD, I'm getting the point of this workout. Don't be depressed with slow times. Just work hard."

... and that's all my personal code for "you're ready for this to be horrible. It's gonna be slow. You suck."

I pretty much had my 4 miles from 2010 committed to memory: they were 6:03, 5:55, 5:42, and 5:45. It wasn't a perfect descend, but there was a hill in that last mile, so that was my excuse. I was ready to be THRILLED to hit those splits again while running along the river yesterday.

I was pleasantly surprised with my first half mile being 3:03. I figured that could have been much worse. My second half mile was 3:01, so I was just 1 second behind my 2010 pace at mile 1 with my 6:04.

Well, long story short, I held on to the suffering, used the knowledge of my half-mile splits to make sure I hit descending miles, and BEAT MY SPLITS FROM 2010!! Here are my half mile and full mile splits from this descending 4-mile tempo run:

3:03 + 3:01 = 6:04
2:58 + 2:52 = 5:51
2:53 + 2:52 = 5:45
2:50 + 2:52 = 5:42

2010: 6:03, 5:55, 5:42, and 5:45

Total of 3 seconds faster over 4 miles in 2024, with a perfect descend!

My Garmin shows a pace chart that you'd expect to see:

I walked for 2 minutes after finishing the 4 tempo miles.... needed that!


Easy until split #4, then tempo pace until split #12.

I can't stress enough that one thing that's saving some of these workouts for me is that I have my Garmin set to HALF mile splits. Back in 2010, I was usually just running to known mile-markers. So I'd only have mile splits. But today, I can adjust my speed after a slow or fast half-mile, and sometimes "fix" what would otherwise be a failed mile split. This is a big deal. I just might be training smarter and with more information this year - it's not that I'm necessarily faster.

Two weeks of training left! One of my goals for the weekend is to map out these final 2 weeks. Coach Jen had me run my long runs on Saturdays, but I adjusted that to be on Mondays (my normal long run day over these last few years). That means the workout she should have me doing TODAY I'll do on MONDAY. And then I *think* I'll do next Saturday's long run (8 days pre-race) the following Monday as well (6 days pre-race). I need to make sure I can shuffle around these last few workouts to fit into these next 2 weeks without going too hard too close to race day!