Tempo Runs: Yet another unhelpful FAQ.

Last night the hubbs and I were actually awake and home at the same time, so I decided to actually converse with him rather than blog. However, please rest assured that some lifting of heavy things and a bike ride happened yesterday morning:

Some call this "blurry." I call it "artsy fartsy."

Those workouts were a nice recovery from the speed work the day before, and really helped me have a nice 8-mile tempo this morning.  How nice was it?  Well, there were lots of paces that included the number "8" at the beginning even though there should only have been 9s, there was no wind, the temps were in the upper 30s, and large dog kept pulling me into ditches for absolutely no reason.

Large dog be like "WE SAW SO MANY DITCHES
IT WAS AWESOME"

Well, large dog thought that last reason made this a good tempo.  I, however, can definitely do without a tour of the local ditches unless Mother Nature calls me into one...which only happens maybe once or three times during a run.  And that, kids, is why I always bring toilet paper with me on every run.

But I digress.  I want to address the questions I always get about tempo runs, not the questions I get about my toilet paper-carrying habits.  So get comfortable, kids - it's time for another one of my unhelpful FAQs, this time about tempo runs.


So, why exactly do you tempo?  Are you just a weirdo or what?

While I am most definitely a weirdo, I am not weird in respect to doing tempo runs.  Tempo runs work wonders in terms of endurance and speed, and the end result is that they help you run a certain pace for longer distances.  Well, if you actually do them during training they help you, that is.

Have you ever not done your tempo runs during training?

Absolutely.  And my race completely and totally sucked, resulting in a lot of desperate internal please to whatever deity may out there to help me make it to the finish line.  And depending on what mile you're at during your marathon, sometimes this results in a LOT of whining and begging to deities.

So how fast do you actually run a tempo run, anyway?

If you read anything about tempos on the internets, you'll see a lot of "comfortably hard" and "lactate threshold" and "so many minutes/seconds faster than your race pace" and whatever.  To avoid all this extra thinking about how fast to run my tempos, I pick a training plan that just freaking tells me how fast to run, and then I go outside and run WAY faster than that because I'm a moron.  For example, see exhibit A below of this morning's tempo, which should have been run at a 9:20 pace:

Let's see...where's those 9:20 paces....they must be hiding.

You didn't really run that fast.  Did large dog help pull you along?

Large dog only pulls at the beginning because he runs like every running rookie ever - goes out too fast and then fades at the end.  There are sections of our running route where he doesn't pull me at all, and in the last few miles he just kind of saunters next to me like "I'm tired...you're on your own now, woman."  The jerk.

Why does large dog pull you into ditches, anyway?

Who knows.  When he gets that look on his face like in the picture above, the only sound that's probably running through his head is the sound of a spring making a large cartoon BOING...and that noise is probably so loud it distracts him and throws him off course.

Or maybe he's just a jerk.

BOING

Do you have to tempo run outside, or can these tempo runs be done on a treadmill?

They absolutely can be done on a treadmill if you have enough mental treadmill fortitude.  I usually do not treadmill a tempo because I usually end up stopping way too often to do things I would never stop to do outside, such as: blow my nose, adjust the song on my headphones, and get off and do a wellness check on all the animals in the house for absolutely no reason other than I'm taking a break disguised as an animal wellness check.  This turns the tempo run into an interval run, but I just lie to myself and call it a tempo and move on to the next workout on the training plan.


Is there anything that helps motivate you to do your tempo runs when you're training for a marathon?

Yes, there are three main motivations I have for doing my tempo runs:

1) Not dying during my marathon and bugging deities with my pleas for survival, and
2) Getting to wear cool new shoes I do not need yet have still recently purchased, such as those below worn for this morning's tempo run:

I need all the luck I can get on a tempo.

3) Not looking like the human equivalent of this:

Hyooman.  I said no more fat shaming.

Summary of post learnings in progress below:

• Tempo runs.  Just do them.  They're good for you.
• Unless the large dog attached to you is yanking you into ditches.  Then they're only OK for you.
• I recommend the Brooks Launch 5s if you're a neutral runner.  And not just because mine have faux gold dust sprinkled along the bottoms.
• Every time large dog stops pulling I start running faster because I think I'm slowing down...and then end up running a fast mile.  You'd think I would have solved this problem by now.
• BOING.

Tomorrow's workout: A bike ride...I'm going to try and make it happen outdoors.