Tempos

I hate tempo runs. A tempo run is part hellish punishment and ... well, it's mostly just hellish punishment.

Practically, a tempo run is a few miles at an easy pace and a bunch of miles at an uncomfortably fast pace. Today that meant four miles at an easy pace (8:00 / mile) and seven miles at a 6:38 pace.

I hate tempo runs. I really like running, but I don't like tempo runs. The reason is deceptively simple: They're really hard. They're that way because they're designed to be that way. The idea is that you push yourself at a level above where you're targeting for your race (my target pace is 7:00 / mile), get your body to adapt to a higher level of stress, and bingo-bango, you're ready to hit your pace target and not keel over midway through the race.

There's only one slight problem. Between the figuring out that you need to run tempos and the fully-adapted, ready-to-run-at-target-pace body, you actually have to run the tempos. And I hate tempo runs.

Of course with every yin comes a yang, with every dentist visit comes the sugar-free lollipop, and with my dread of tempos come the two of the deep-down reasons I really love to run.

I organized my run today into three sections: One mile at easy pace, the seven tempo miles, and then another three at easy pace. During the entire first mile, my mind was whirring nonstop with "You can't do this, there's no way you can do this, you're going to fall of the treadmill and look like a moron." During the first tempo mile my mind kept going, "You're about to fly off the back of this treadmill and get a face-full of floor." During the second mile, "You're exhausted already, how do you expect to finish this?"

Then, some time around mile 4.5 -- the halfway point of the tempo portion of the playbill -- it started changing. First it was, "Wow, you made it to the halfway point." At mile five it was, "You're can actually do this!" And then, imperceptibly, sometime around mile six, it all disappeared. All was quiet. And then, suddenly, it was mile eight and I had finished the tempo section of the run.

And those two reasons I love to run?

1) It's an arena to push myself beyond what I think I'm capable of and prove over and over again that I really have no idea what I'm capable of; and

2) It's a way to shut down all of the goddamn voices.

But you know what? I still hate tempo runs.


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