Callus Your Brain & She Gets Me

Workout Wednesday happened and while the picture is at the track, the majority of the workout was on the roads.  We did a 2 mile warm-up and then a 4 mile tempo run followed by 3 x 200m at the track (I only did one of the 200s because my body was telling me I was done at that point) and then a cool-down.  10.63 miles @ 7:28 average.

It really is a tricky thing to figure out WHAT your tempo pace should be.

A few different definitions of tempo runs I’ve seen…

*30 seconds slower per mile than your 5k pace

*15 seconds slower than 10k pace

*A comfortably hard pace

*A pace that you could hold for at least 20 minutes

*The pace you would run if you were in a race that lasted 60 minutes

*Calculators like this one will figure out about what pace to run for a tempo based on your race times

If you have a coach they will probably give you a pace to hit which is what I have done for many years in the past but right now my tempo pace is a pace that I feel like I could hold without slowing down for however long the tempo is… so my tempo pace for 3 miles is definitely going to be different than my tempo pace for a 6 miles.  I also love to pace my tempo paces off of the ‘comfortably hard’ definition too because depending on the course and the day, your tempo pace could be way different from one day to the next (one day comfortably hard might feel like 8:00 pace and one day comfortably hard might feel like 7:30 pace)!

This article HERE is so great for figuring out what your tempo pace is and I love what it said about CALLUSING THE MIND AND BODY.  Tempo runs are a really great way to help you to learn how to cope with pain so that on race day you already have strategies to use when you hurt.  Your brain knows that you have done this kind of work before and that you can do it again.  Just like our feet get callused from all of the work, our brains do too.

One of the hardest part of the workout might be these sets of stairs we come up during the cool-down to get to a path we like to take.

These burn after running fast.

I have been using the Hyperion Elite more and more and I am falling in love with them big time.  My tempo miles were about 15 seconds faster per mile on average (and one mile longer) and on the same course than what I did last week (in a different pair of shoes).  The faster pace might have been because I was having a better day but it could also be because these shoes and the carbon plate in them.   The shoes are so incredibly light and I really do feel the energy return they give me with each step.  I CANNOT WAIT to try them out in a marathon in the future.

After the run Emilee brought out the most beautiful chocolate chip cookies.   I was starving when we finished and gobbled this right up.

Usually I am all about the milk chocolate chips in cookies but these were semi-sweet and they hit the spot.

I was pretty tired after the workout so we did a lot of floor playing ha.  I asked Skye to run and grab some books from her room for us to read and instead she went and got a cookbook for us to read together…  she gets me:)

All of the pretty food pictures inspired me to make some bread in our bread machine… butter + jam are a need.

And it was so good to have everyone together last night.

PS Dinner for the last two nights….

OUR FAVORITE Easy Coconut Shrimp Curry.  The girls love this meal as much as Andrew and I do.

And this Chipotle Sweet Potato and Quinoa Breakfast-For-Dinner Skillet.   Everyone was a fan of this one except for Skye and Knox.

It’s going to be a hard day when he no longer falls asleep and stays asleep on me so easily.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Who has tried out a shoe with a carbon plate?  Thoughts??!

How do you define a tempo run?

Semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips (or other) in your cookies?

What is a delicious dinner that you have had recently?