Tempo Tuesdays

With six months to massively drop my half marathon time, I decided it was time to say hello to some speedwork. I had never done a tempo run before (or even run with a real watch, not just my phone). Any time I saw a tempo run on the training guide I was following I would just substitute it for a run of the same distance instead of doing what it said (in what seemed like another language). But this time I decided to actually click on the workout on my training plan and figure out what I was supposed to do.

The workout

1,600m easy warm-up
1,600m at or below my target half marathon pace (8:38)
800m jog at an easy pace (9:30-10 minutes/mile)
1,600m at 8:38
1,600m cool down

Total distance: 4.47 miles

Surprisingly, I actually had fun. I liked having a time to make every lap – it made my workout seem like it went really fast, even though I was seriously running in circles. It also brought me back to when I swam in high school and had splits to hit, which made me feel completely at home on the foreign track.

I made two plans before I started training, one that I thought was 100 percent do-able and another that seemed like a bit of a stretch. After being able to keep up with the second week of the harder plan without any problems, I’ve decided that’s the one I’m going to do from here on out. Hitting every split on the track last night cemented that I can knock out every workout and that my half marathon time goal is possible.