First tempo of the campaign

Run type: tempo
Distance: 14 km
Time: 1:02:25
Average pace: 4:28 min/km
Cumulative weekly km: 14 km
Weather: 23 degrees and light rain

Slept through the alarm, which was strange because I was sleeping fitfully from 4:00. Jumped up at 5:20, the time I am normally clicking the start button of my stopwatch. Prepared quickly and got out the door at 5:30am. Oohh..brisk! Should have worn a T-shirt instead of this singlet. So the cool weather, the lost 10 minutes, and the under-dressing all conspired to suggest I needed to run faster than normal. I'd been toying with the idea of running the Komazawa Park part of the run at tempo pace anyway, so these factors basically sealed my fate.

Ran to the park at a bit better than 5:00 min pace. Had to take an immediate 5-min pit stop. After the pit stop I set out pretty hard. Hit the first km mark (uphill) in 4:25. Slow, but the pit stop had interrupted things. Gritted my teeth and pushed on with resolve to lift the pace. Second km (downhill) came up in 4:04. Much better. Next uphill km was 4:07. Good. The interesting thing was what my heart rate was doing. At this point it was still only just barely 150 despite the fact that I was sure I was very close to threshold pace. The next downhill km was 4:01 and the subsequent uphill 4:04. Right in the zone of what I consider my tempo pace to be. I think my heart rate just peaked at 160 right at the top of the hill, but most of the way up the hill it was 158. The final km in the park, downhill, was 3:58 (heart rate back down to 155). That gave me just over 6 km at tempo pace. Enough for a first outing (not counting last week's 5-k time trial). I then ran home at just above 4:34 pace with HR around the mid 140s.

So, with the thermal loading removed, that is where I'm at. Able to run at my old threshold pace with a heart rate of 155. This is really very encouraging. I think that perhaps alternating this session each week with 1600-m intervals for the next four weeks, gradually increasing the workload, plus bringing in race pace run on Friday mornings, will get my legs much more used to running at the faster pace.

Things are going well.