Tempo Tuesday

Simon before his speedy running days...(the one on the left - oh Google Images, you will never let any of us be politicians)

With the threat of a thunderstorm looming, Simon and I left my place for our tempo run. It is a rare occasion that I get the chance to run my tempo with someone. The weather forecasters had said that the rain was coming, but the sun and wind were more prevalent than any rain that was to come. In fact, as I sit here writing this many hours later, the rain has yet to arrive.

After a warm-up around the neighbourhood, showing it off to Simon, we headed down to the Trans-Canada Trail and set out for our 30 minute tempo. After the workout last week, a 20 minute tempo, I wasn't sure what to expect coming into today. Last week I struggled to maintain the pace throughout the tempo, but having someone with me this time would make things much easier.

We set out to try to hold 3:35-3:40/min pace for the workout. The amazing thing about having a training partner is that you are never allowed off the hook. Not having run many tempo workouts recently, I am still struggling to find the feel of certain pace efforts. As such, we were a little quick off the start, but the effort felt good. As well, it was all downhill, but we won't worry about that now.

The rest of the workout went well with Simon and I not racing, but rather pushing each other to maintain the workout. In 30 minutes of tempo, we covered almost 8.5k, averaging 3:32 min/km. I am definitely pleased with this run, much more so than last week as it was a quicker tempo, but also felt easier. This is no doubt the result of running with a teammate, but it is something that I happy to build on going into Thursday's workout.

A good night with no rain...yet.