I ran in the afternoon with Sasha today. I ran the 5 mile tempo, and Sasha joined me for 2 miles of it. The goal was to keep my heart rate as close to 173 as I could get it for 4 miles, and to then push the pace as hard as I could for the last mile. It was rather windy, so I didn't really know what to expect as far as pace went, but I was hoping to be at least around 5:20 pace for the first 4 miles. I took off at the beginning of the tempo and pushed the pace hard from the beginning, because I wanted to get my heart rate up to 173 as quickly as possible. That first quarter ended up a little quick because I was pushing the pace more, but once I settled into my goal heart rate the splits slowed down. Splits are as follows: 1:16, 1:20, 1:19, 1:20 (5:15), 1:20, 1:20, 1:23, 1:21 (5:24, 10:39 at 2 miles), 1:21, 1:22, 1:20, 1:20 (5:23, 16:02 at 3 miles), 1:21, 1:21, 1:22, 1:21 (5:25, 21:27 at 4 miles), 1:14, 1:14, 1:13, 1:13 (4:54, 26:21 for 5 miles). The wind was fairly consistent during the course of the tempo, gusting and swirling around fairly consistently, so I can't really say that some of the splits were hindered more by the wind, or that any were aided at all (the exception being the split from 2.25-2.5 and the split from 2.5-2.75 when I had headwind followed by tailwind after the turn-around). At times my HR lagged a little, and those splits were a little slower, and at times the HR got a little too high. On average the HR was more along the lines of 174-175, but by the time I got to 4 miles my average for the tempo was still only 173 due to slower HR at the beginning of the tempo. At 4 miles I took off. The pace felt fairly comfortable, but I could not seem to go much faster. HR peaked at 185 during the last mile. I tried going faster during the last quarter, but I couldn't seem to do it, however I did feel like I could have held 1:13-1:14 pace for another mile or so before slowing. I ended up setting my pr for the course, running 26:21, compared to the 26:23 I ran a couple months ago.
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