Good Long Run, and HORRIBLE Tempo Run

Two runs last week couldn't have been more different.

Both of these were old "Coach Jen workouts" from when she trained me in 2010 to my first sub-60 TC 10 Mile. And then I reused many of her workouts 2 years ago to break 60 for the 2nd time.

First, I had a decent long run on Monday. It's very similar to my normal long runs (6 harder miles in the middle, negative split 95% of the time), but it was a bit shorter and harder: 5 descending miles in the middle finishing FAST. I used my half-mile splits to make sure I was descending each full mile - I didn't care about perfectly descending every HALF-mile split, but I just made sure to make each MILE faster. Coach Jen's notes said to hit the first of those hard 5 miles at 6:30 pace and then make sure the final 2 were sub-6:00. So that's what I did:

3:14 + 3:15 = 6:30
3:02 + 3:09 = 6:12
3:05 + 3:03 = 6:09
2:57 + 2:53 = 5:50
2:55 + 2:51 = 5:46

That ended up being 10 sec faster than what I did in 2024, and 9 sec faster than what I did in 2010!!

Building from mile 2.5 to mile 7.5.


Half mile splits: fast from the split 5 (the bridge) to split 15.

Second, I had a horrible tempo run on Friday. It was meant to be a descending 4-mile tempo run. (Coach Jen liked to train me to get faster throughout every run.) In 2024, I started with my first mile just over 6:00, and then my final 2 miles were sub-5:50. But that speed didn't show up this time. I just could NOT find another gear on Friday. I'd speed up to where I thought I should be, but then I'd have to back-off 5 seconds later as I couldn't maintain that pace. I'd had my biggest month of biking since at least August of 2007 (19 years!), and I was finishing up 3 weeks of running that were 3 of my 4 highest mileage weeks all year. I think my legs were just gassed.

So instead of starting just over 6:00 and then dropping fast like 2 years ago, I started at 6:21 and was only able to drop to 6:01 by the final mile. D'oh. My splits over that descending tempo run were 6:21, 6:16, 6:10, and 6:01... so at least they were descending. But they were slow. I ran those 4 miles nearly 90 seconds slower last week than I did 2 years ago.

Hard from split 5 through split 12.

Can't win em' all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯