After Tuesday’s awful workout I was in two minds about tonight’s tempo run. I must admit half of me was tempted to take the night off and rest up for the weekend run long, but the other half was determined to shake off the disappointment of my poor performance and run the 10 miles as close to goal pace as I could. I’m not a quitter, and I certainly don’t want to get into the habit of skipping workouts, so somewhat predictably I chose the latter.
I enlisted the help of my Garmin Forerunner 305‘s Virtual Partner feature. This unique feature helps you achieve certain goals for your workout and you can choose either of the following combinations:
Distance & Time: Set the distance for your workout and the time you’d like to achieve. Forerunner 305 computes the pace/speed required.
Time & Pace/Speed: Set the time and the pace/speed for your workout.
Distance & Pace/Speed: Set the distance and the pace/speed for your workout.
The Virtual Partner knows exactly the pace required to achieve the goal you have set. Forerunner 305 constantly measures your current pace/speed and compares it to the Virtual Partner’s pace/speed and displays whether you’re ahead or behind your Virtual Partner (pictured above).
I chose option 3 – Distance & Pace/Speed. I needed to run 10 miles @ 6:48 per mile pace (Planned Marathon Pace), so after less than 60 seconds “programming” the 305, and armed with 2 small bottles of Hammer Nutrition’s Heed, I was ready to go. For me, the only drawback to the Virtual Partner is that you have to be ready to run at the desired speed right at the beginning of the workout. I prefer to warm up for a mile or two before hitting the required pace, so before pressing the start button on the 305 I ran for about 10 minutes and did some light stretching to loosen up my legs.
I won’t bore you with the details of the run, but after a moderate first mile I was able to hit my target for the remaining 9 miles. I never really felt under pressure to maintain the required pace, although the last couple of miles did get fairly tough. My splits for tonight’s tempo run are as follows:
6:55 6:40 6:46 6:46 6:42 6:46 6:47 6:45 6:43 6:18
As you can see, I was still feeling good on the last mile and finished off the workout in style! What a difference 48 hours and a few degrees on the thermometer can make. Tuesday night was probably my worst workout of the marathon plan so far. Tonight, despite still being 80&F, was arguably one of my best. I wonder what the weekend’s 15 mile run has in store for me?