Tempo

Nicole, I think you're running too slow. You shouldn't be laughing and teasing me. Tomorrow, run with the 6km/min group.

And so I did.

And so I experienced a real tempo run.

But let's back up a bit, shall we?

Tuesday night yielded the first night I got out with my Running Room group to run Tempo. It was a deceiving night, weather wise. We thought it was going to be nice and warm and it seemed that way, until we got out there and felt the wind blow. No matter, after 10 minutes of easy running we were warmed up enough to tackle the 6:14/min KMs assigned to us.

Running tempo with the group was great! I loved the warnings as we approached the end of the 10 minute warm up. I loved that everyone fell silent and just RAN as hard as they were supposed to. I loved just RUNNING without worrying about running too quickly as all I had to do was follow the leader.

We completed the first 10 minutes of tempo run and slowed down for the two minute rest. I felt great! When it was time to kick it up again, my leader told me to follow someone else; her knees were bothering her. So I did and ran with the same freedom as before. It was near the end that Bing came back to us and asked how we were all doing. When a few of us answered easily and joked with him, he quickly told us that we'd be moving up a pace group the next night. He was so serious! But it was fine.

So last night, I was determined to keep up with the new group, but to not KILL myself in the process. I'm happy to report that I was able to do it. In fact, we averaged 5:57/km (perhaps the crazy wind helped us when we were not heading into it). This was the nine out of ten effort that Bing spoke of. I still enjoyed the run for the fact that I DID IT, but it was hard. There was effort. Effort that will be rewarded on May 15.

Next week: Hills!