Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Earth Day and Tempo Tuesday

Is it Tuesday already??   Earth Day threw me for a loop this year, being on Monday.  It was a gorgeous day, much better than last year.  We go to the local college for festivities with our homeschool group.  I didn't take many photos, but I had to grab a couple of the lovely tulips!


 I even sneaked a picture of my girl and her friend, waiting for their other friends to arrive.  (my daughter, Savannah, is the one in the yellow)

 After such a lovely day, I woke up to this:  (you can see my bottle-border garden I have been working on in the background)
 I guess this was good timing.  Dallas has been wanting to run on the treadmill, he is having issues running outside (that's a whole other blog post!) so I figured I could get my tempo run done on the treadmill just as easily as outside!  I really pushed myself today, I did intervals of running at 5.7(10:30 pace)  for a quarter of a mile and then 6.4(9:22 pace)  for a quarter of a mile.  I really had to push myself to do the three miles at that speed, but it felt fantastic and I know my speed work will help with my long runs.  I realized that I prefer long runs at a nice steady pace.  That's probably a good thing considering I'm training for a distance race!  ;) 

Hope everyone has a lovely Tuesday, mine will be spent indoors, I have a good book I have been trying to find time to read, perfect rainy day for it!

Do you like speed work or distance runs better?  Do you feel like tempo runs have helped your endurance on longer runs?

8 comments:

  1. Great job on the speedwork!

    I have a love/hate relationship with speedwork... tempo runs are not my favorite but I actually really enjoy interval training! I love distance runs a lot though because I can really lose myself and spend my time thinking about anything I feel like at that moment. :)

    I love the tulip pictures! Very Spring-y!

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    1. Thanks Lauren! Yep, I was thinking this morning that it was really hard to settle into the run when I was pushing so hard and having to change it up every quarter of a mile. I feel good now that I've done it though and it keeps me from trying to go too far/too soon with my distance!

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  2. The tulips are beautiful! Im more of an endurance runner vs tempo.

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    1. They SMELLED amazing too! I'm definitely more an endurance runner, but the tempo runs seem to be boosting my long runs, so I'm going to keep with them until I dread doing them I guess! LOL!

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  3. Oooh, see.. I like the tempo runs much better. Because I have trouble losing myself in my mind...and so if I'm changing things up- my mind doesn't get bored....

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    1. It did go by VERY fast since I kept changing my speed every .25! Made it fly by, but it felt harder (as well it should since I was running faster than normal! LOL)

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  4. I love distance runs! I didn't do any speedwork for the Princess Half, but I plan on doing some when it comes time to train for it this next time around!

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    1. I love the distance as well! AND, according to my fitness pal, I don't burn as many calories doing speedwork as my distance runs. I'm not sure I believe that, I think I must burn a little bit more than normal when really pushing my limit? I can tell it's helping my stamina though, so I'm going to continue for now.

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