Tuesday Tempo

I hustled home from work to get to the Art Museum in time to join up with the group. The plan was a fast 5 miles, the last few at tempo pace, and then a few miles cool down.

I set out at a quick pace with Stevus and Ben. First and second mile at about 6:50 and I was feeling good. At the turn around I started picking up the pace to what I hoped was about 6:20 and Stevus and Ben joined me. Third mile in 6:35, about what I expected. Fourth mile in 6:16 and I was starting to feel it. I glanced over at Steve and he looked like he was effortlessly moving along I couldn't help but feel more disjointed and less fluid with a choppy stride. Probably 75% in my head and 25% true.

Fifth mile in 5:57 and I was glad to be done. After chatting with the group I ran 2.5 extra with that guy who joined us last winter for a lot of runs and has completed about 2 marathons a year since 1978 and is still in great running shape but I can't remember his name.

We traded a few marathon stories, his story base of course being about 10x mine, and he told me about his first marathon in Yonkers and how he did what he thought was "hill tranining" on the ramps leading to the boardwalk in Wildwood NJ. He was sadly mistaken when the course turned to huge rolling hills for the last 9 miles. The finish line was guy pointing at the runners to run between two steel mesh trash cans.

He has been doing marathons since running boom really began in the late 70's and we discussed how things have changed. Interesting stuff.

7.5 miles in 52 minutes.