Okay today was the first day where the change of focus in my training plan really became more than just a nice theory that I have about how I need to run.

As a part of changing my training plan, I moved my tempo workouts to Tuesdays, since that seems to fit better with the local racing schedule, which has several Tuesday informally formal “races” that I plan to be using as tempo workouts once they start and I get my act together.

Which meant that today was Tempo Tuesday…err Harold Tempo Tuesday looked an awful lot like repeat vs a tempo run in the Hansons Method? What’s up. I am prepping for a harder 5K race and need to get back to running faster, even when I am tired, which means that I have to slightly alter my definition of what a tempo workout entails.

That also made today’s a little easier mentally, since I have been doing the Hanson strength workouts and this new definition of a tempo workout was more a continuation of those workouts, just a “little” faster.

Yes, I did the run on the treadmill and will continue to do the tempo and speed workouts on the treadmill for a while longer. It didn’t help that it was sunny, mid 40s and just a little breezy outside. I have to admit that the treadmill does keep my paces more honest and consistent, but still if I wasn’t doing a training plan and had specific paces I wanted hit, I would have been outside running.

So today, my “tempo” workout was:

• 1.0 mile warm-up @ 6.5 mph
• 1.0 mile @ 8.2 mph – I wasn’t too sure about how this would feel, I have not done speed work at the 10K or 5K paces for over a month and wanted to blow the dust out, to see how the body felt about the faster paces. No issues until the last tenth of a mile, when I just wanted it to be over.
• .5 @ 6.2 mph – recovery. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary or new twinges or twangs, so I figured that I was feeling good enough to do my current (well at least what I would like to believe is my current race pace) and went for it.
• 1.0 mile @ 8.6 mph – Actually this repeat felt better than the first one. The little bit extra speed seemed to even out my stride, where it felt choppy on the first mile repeat, on this one I felt smooth and strong all the way to the end.
• .5 @ 6.2 mph – recovery. I figured that I had one more fast mile in me.
• 1.0 mile @ 8.6 mph – I went deep into the music on this one after the half mile point and finished stronger than I thought that I would. However, sweat was draining off me like a firehouse and I had to ditch the glasses with about a quarter mile left. Treadmills have nice little nocks and crannies for putting things that are getting in the way. I was sweating so much that I couldn’t see out of the damn things anyways.
• .1 @ 6.2 mph – recovery
• 4 x .1 @ 9.1 mph with .1 recovery @ 6.2 mph – For me a part of doing a tempo workout is also doing strides at my goal race pace or faster. Now, I don’t know if I will hit a 6.35 pace for a full 5K, but I want to be able to pick up the pace at the end of a race and doing strides helps with that.
• .3 @ 9.1 mph – yeah, this is part of that go faster for a little longer thinking at the end of a run to get used doing that in a race.
• .3 @ 6.2 mph – cool-down –

I was going to go to 7.0 miles total, but decided that 6.5 miles total was enough for this workout today. I am not trying for super high mileage during this training cycle. So I walked the last half mile to get the 7.0 in, but stopped the workout when I stopped running.

The Beacons are still the best running shoes for the treadmill, but I am thinking they are beginning to feel a little tired and my body feels more beat-up after a run than when they were new. So I have a feeling that for me, they are a 300 mile pair of running shoes. Which is about right where I expected them to fall…I could probably get that extra 100 miles out them if I really had to, but to what purpose?

I will keep them around to run longer treadmill runs – if I have to, nothing else I have really comes close and pickup another pair of Beacons sometime in May. For my faster I will probably move to a pair of Razor 2s or Green Silence, until I get another pair of Beacons.

Good Run and I surprised myself that I was able to maintain the paces that I did. Now to get a time trial 5K race in to get a baseline of where I really am. I am thinking that the Unity 5K in few weeks might be the perfect race. Fast course that I know.