8 mile tempo success!

This week has been interesting so far and has great potential to get even better as the weekend is quickly approaching. Last week, Kimi and I had a 20 mile long run to complete. We were determined that this run was going to go much better than the 16 from the week before. It was a bit of a windy day and the wind was blowing out of the southeast so we decided to park all the way in Willard and then venture towards Springfield first. We also decided that we would simply run an extra out and back stretch in familiar territory between Springfield and Willard so that we would be able to better avoid fighting the wind without any covering.  The run wasn't anything incredibly special but it was definitely solid. 

Saturday afternoon, we were in for a real treat. My parents came over to visit for a few hours.  It was a lot of fun simply spending time with them without any specific plans.  We had to cut their visit a bit short so that we could go to Derek and Lindy's wedding that evening. It was a very nice ceremony and I'm extremely happy for the two of them.

Kimi and me at Derek and Lindy's reception

Me before the 8 mi tempo

Kimi before the 8 mi tempo

On Monday, I decided to cut the run short a bit because my legs were still not recovered from the 20 on Saturday and I knew we had an 8 mile tempo run scheduled for Tuesday afternoon that I really wanted to succeed in. Unfortunately, the wind early in the week was really strong.  This meant that Kimi and I had to get out there and fight the wind during the 8 mile tempo.  The first mile and the last mile were both directly into the wind which made keeping them on pace quite difficult. 

At no point during the run did either one of us actually feel all that great but we managed to keep every mile right on pace.  Our first mile clicked off just under 6 min @ 5:59 and then we kept all the rest between 5:52-5:56 until the final mile which crept back up to a 5:58. Following the tempo, we trotted for a half mile, stopped and prepared to start rolling again. We added an extra 1/2 mile in 2:48 which we were pleased with since the darkness had officially set in for this one.  

Smiling after our 8 mile tempo workout (12/15/2015 and we were wearing shorts and short sleeves)

Our goal for the rest of the week is to knock out some mile repeats on Saturday to start generating some more foot turnover followed by a 16 mile marathon specific long run on Sunday (details about this one will be in my next post).