Seven Days of Biking Followed by a BRUTAL Tempo Run

Last week, my family was gone on a spring break trip (my wife took my boys to Portugal!), and I got in a bit more training than normal. They left on the 14th, and those next few days were quite big as I went into that weekend - and I talked about some nice bike rides in that linked post.

Starting on the long 44 mile ride for my birthday, I had seven out of eight days with a bike ride as my family was away:

And as I mentioned at the end of this post, I was THIS CLOSE to biking to the gym on Sunday (the only day above that I did NOT bike) to add in a swim which would have made it 8 out of 8 days of biking... but I thought it would be better to truly get in a rest day, which was probably the right call.

As far as biking goes, those 8 days looked like this:

THURSDAY was my long birthday ride.

FRIDAY was biking to and from the gym (with some extra as well) so I could swim.

SATURDAY was just a moderate ride mentioned in this post - that put me at 101.09 miles for the week! In MARCH!!

SUNDAY was a rest day. I actually got a massage!

MONDAY was an easy spin along the river (and a bit of the Greenway) in the afternoon after one of my best long runs ever that morning!

TUESDAY was biking to and from the pool for a long swim.

WEDNESDAY was a trip to Menards and the library by bike - just easy errands on a chilly day.

And THURSDAY was biking to and from class after a big trainer ride that morning (as it was too cold then for an outdoor "training ride").

My (super dirty) mountain bike in the hallway to my office at work.

So in those 8 days, I had 7 rides outside (only 2 of those being "training rides") totaling 122.54 miles. Nice!!

Before my family came back on Friday afternoon, I fit in a running speed workout on Friday morning. I figured it was time for another track workout, but I'm trying to balance out my speed workouts better this year. I really started doing shorter/harder track workouts in 2022, and then did that a lot more in 2023, and it was sort of no surprise that 2024 held a handful of lifetime running PRs because of that added speed work. But I maybe focused TOO much on short work on the track, as proven by staying OFF the track for 9 weeks leading up to a fast TC 10 Mile that utilized mostly tempo runs. So I realized on Friday that I should do more of a tempo run instead of intervals on the track.

My warm-up started SLOW and HEAVY. I was well aware that I was feeling all the recent biking in my legs. I thought this workout could suck. Hard. I did an old "Coach Jen" workout that was 1 mile warm-up, then straight into 4 descending tempo miles. Stop and walk and try not to die, then a mile cool-down home.

All I remembered from doing this workout back in August to prep for the TC 10 Mile was that my first mile was 6:0x, and then the rest got faster and were all sub-6:00. But I didn't remember any more details.

My first mile on Friday was OK. It was about what I thought it would be (nothing great, but not horrible either): 3:03 + 3:02 = 6:06.3.

My 2nd mile was just a bit better, but I was hurting. I was ready for this to be quite a bit slower than in August. I turned around after a mile 2 that was 2:58 + 2:58 = 5:56.2.

"OK... THIS is where the workout is MADE. Keep it strong here!" I was really hurting, but a 2:55 half-mile split made me feel a bit better. And then I felt like I was dying as I finished mile 3, but again, a 2:51 half-mile split made me feel OK with how much I was hurting. Mile 3 was 2:55 + 2:51 = 5:47.3.

I didn't know if I'd be able to finish a full 4 miles, and that's how you know you're doing a tempo run correctly! But it only counts if you ACTUALLY hold on through the finish. I finished with the biggest uphill in the final half mile, but I kept up the perfect descend with 2:50 + 2:49 = 5:40.2!

It turns out that I was faster NOW than I was in August when I was in the best running shape of my life! I ran a 23:39 then, and I ran a 23:30 now on the exact same course. And EVERY mile was faster now! The 1st mile was 2 sec faster, the 2nd was 2.5 sec faster, and the 3rd and 4th were both 2 sec faster! I had no idea I was under each of my splits from 7 months ago! (And in my 8 half-mile splits, 5 were faster now, 2 were the same, and 1 was slower now.)

Half-mile splits in an out-and-back 4-mile tempo.


Started at split 2, finished at split 10, walked to
the north and back to split 11 before running a cool-down.

That was a THRILLING way to wrap up a nice week in the saddle! Didn't think it'd end with one of my fastest tempo workouts ever! Woo-hoo!!