I totally tempoed today. Kind of.

I know I said in my last post I was going to race today.  That was before I woke up feeling like total crap.

The hubbs and I went out to dinner last night, and I was feeling pretty good until I went to bed.  My stomach kept bothering me all night, and felt pretty blah when I got out of bed at 4:30 A.M. today. 

I really didn't feel like racing.  I felt as if I would have a gastrointestinal event of epic proportions during the race.  And we all know how much that sucks.  Or is the opposite of sucking.  Or whatever.

So I didn't race.  I slept for another hour, and then proceeded to fart around on the internet before I went for my run.  But it's hard to fart around on the internet when your internet company keeps giving you internet for about 10 minutes and then yanking it away from you for about 20 minutes.  You sit by your computer with big puppy-dog eyes looking at your internet status icon, praying for that irritating yellow exclamation mark to go away before you can gleefully yet quickly shop and facebook the crap out of your computer until they yank the internet away from you again.  Those *REALLYBADWORD*s. 

But enough about my internet woes.  After I finished getting toyed with by my internet company, I got my butt up and went for a tempo run.  Kind of.  Remember, I have come to hate traditional tempo runs because my last training schedule called for 16 weeks of the same tempo run over and over and over.  Ugh.  So I came across a Runner's World article that listed some possible speed work options that could spice up my Thursday speed work.  Being desperate at the time of reading the article, I ripped out the page from the magazine and stapled it to the back of my training plan because I pretty much use staples on everything.  Except the dogs.

Today I did the workout they call "Ascending Ladders."  As the name implies, you do lengthier and lengthier runs at your marathon pace with a half-mile jog in-between each "rung" of the ladder.  The first run starts at 1 mile and the last is 4 miles, but they tell you not to go all the way to 4 on your first go around with this workout.  I decided to stop at 3 miles, and away I went.  Well, I programmed the workout into my Garmin first, and THEN away I went.  After putting on my headphones, sunscreen, and changing tops 3 times, I mean.

Here's the outcome:

I really dug this workout.  I ran about the same amount of miles I would have for my boring old tempo run, but this one was MUCH more mentally easy on me.  Don't get me wrong--it still trained me mentally, especially having to do the longest run at the end.  I was hanging on in that last mile.  Not because of the pace, but because of the heat and because of the fact that I really wanted to stop running.  So there was enough mental training going on here, which is always good preparation for paying to run 26.2 miles on one day when you could, on any other day, run the same route for free.  Albeit without water stations or post-run food or other runners spitting in front of you.

But what I really dug about this--like, really REALLY dug--was that I was running at my goal marathon pace.  During my last round of training, there were absolutely no runs at marathon pace.  Not one.  Most of my running was done at 10K pace or at easy run pace.  No wonder I couldn't get into a groove during the first three miles of my marathon--I had never practiced what my groove should be. In a previous half-marathon plan, there was tons of goal-pace running, which was probably why it helped me break the 2 hour mark in the half for the first time.

This workout shall be repeated.  Not every Thursday, but at least once a month.  And it shall be extended to include those 4 miles at the end (which, by the way, makes this workout around 13 miles).  I will still include tempo runs, but this workout makes for some nice variety on my long speed work days. 

And it may heal my tempo run-wounded soul.