Tough Tempo
Difficult solo tempo effort today in the slush and cold that is the Boston Marathon Course. I am getting over a bit of a cold so I wanted something not too crazy. It was supposed to be 8 miles at 5:20 with the first four being pretty easy and the last four being really rough. I went from Hopkinton Center down to the four mile mark, turned around and went back. I was hoping to the workout this morning as soon as I woke up but the 3 inches of snow on the ground put a halt to that. I fired up the Tecumsa and got the snow out of the way and went for a 5 mile shake-out around lake boon in hopes the daytime sun would clear the roads so I could make a run at the tempo efffort. After calling my old Hopkinton training partner, he confirmed the sides of 135 were not great but certainly runable. That turned out to be a good description because the car lanes were wet but not icy, the edges were slushy with some ice in spots. It was a poor time to run though because there was a ton of traffic. A lot of running in the slush which didn't seem to matter too much on the out section but I was really spinng on the up hill coming back to Hopkinton.
Here is the data from the watch.
5.27
5.18
5.23
5.27
.12 turn around
5.41
5.45
5.53
6.07
The last mile was tough because I was tired, the sun was setting and car lights were annoying, and I spent a lot of time in the slush during that section. Not a good time but the effort was there and I maintained my Sat-Tues-Fri workout effort I wanted for the next 7 days.
Big shout out to New Balance Boston 800m flyer Jess Minty who crushed her PR at the New Balance Track and Field Center today with a 2.10.10. That is get down fast and with any luck we will have more break out performances from other NBboston mates as we start to round into winter form.
That's all I got.