Final Hard Tempo

I met Brian King last night over on the Greatwood loop for our last hard tempo run before the race next weekend. Our plan was to do the Greatwood loop twice then a mile out and back for a total of 9.1 miles, at about a 6:45 pace. That's what we did and it felt great, though it was a little chilly.

We started off fairly slow and I could tell that I probably wasn't 100% due to the speedwork from Thursday. But after a first mile of 7:12 we quickly got things down under 7 minute pace. Mile two was 7:01 but mile three was 6:52. We covered the first loop in 24:36 (6:56 pace), and continued to crank the pace down in the second loop. Mile four was a 6:46 and five was a 6:49. Mile six was a 6:46 again but we brought mile seven down to a 6:32. We completed the second loop in 23:35 (6:39 pace) and were ready to hit the out and back. We maintained that 6:32 pace going out and I mentioned to Brian that on the way back he was free to open things up if he wanted. He said he had no intention of doing that, so I called him a name that starts with a p and can be used to refer to a cat, and told that if he wasn't going to then I was. We hit the turnaround and both picked it up to a pretty furious pace. About half way back Brian, to his credit, said, "Come on Lance, let's go". I was already doing about the best I could so all I could do was watch him pull ahead a bit and finish that final mile about 9 seconds before me. Brian posted a 5:58 and I came in with a 6:07. It was great to finish that fast and I felt terrific. We did about a mile cool-down and are ready for next weekend. Now it's time to taper, maybe get in one more abbreviated speedwork session this week and a 3-4 brisk run later in the week then bring it on Sunday.