Running pacing question for a planned "tempo run"

daddyratty

I have a "tempo run" scheduled tomorrow.

It's the first deviation from "easy runs" on my schedule (this is the 7th week of the schedule and my 11th week running). I am nearing my very first 10K (31 days away now).

The schedule has me running 4 miles, including 1 warm-up mile and 1 cool-down mile and then 2 miles at 12:41. That's all well and good except my mile paces are in the low 10 range now, and my schedule has me running miles around a 14:26 pace still. It's from the SmartCoach at Runners World, and they were based on my running pace and miles per week on February 21, ramping me up for the May 7 race.

Here's what I'm thinking: my mile paces have been going down steadily. My paces from my last 10 runs are 11:19, 11:06, 10:48, 10:28, 11:05, 12:26, 11:36, 10:33, 10:26, and 10:15. The schedule called for mile paces over this stretch of 14:34 down to 14:26, so I'm clearly well ahead of this. My mile splits from my 3-mile run on Tuesday were 10:36, 10:31, and 9:39.

I'm thinking about setting my 2-mile "tempo" interval pace at 9:50, and my warm-up and cool-down miles at about 12:00.

Anybody have other input into this?

NB: after my 5K on the 16th, or perhaps as late as after the 10K on the 7th, I hope to recalibrate the training with some more up-to-date pacing and "miles per week" data to hopefully challenge me a bit more.

stplatt

I think that sounds like a good plan. Obviously the race times that you used to create the plan have changed since you began the plan. Improvise as you need to, then when you run your next races, regenerate the plan and see what changes are made.

scottb81

Maybe you could run the tempo at perceived effort instead of time. It should be at a hard pace that you can maintain for the allotted time. See what you are capable of now. When you are starting out your fitness and ability increases quickly and what you calculated at the beginning is no longer relevant.

rybo

Maybe you could run the tempo at perceived effort instead of time. It should be at a hard pace that you can maintain for the allotted time. See what you are capable of now. When you are starting out your fitness and ability increases quickly and what you calculated at the beginning is no longer relevant.

This is what I would do. Go by percieved effort, then see what the pace turns out to be.

daddyratty

Thanks guys. I had posted this same question on my "dailymile" account, too, and this is very similar to the advice I got there.

Thank you!

jeremymaritz

+1 to Scott and Rybo...just go with perceived effort; that schedule should just be a guideline. Awesome times, btw!