I tried out the new tempo loop that I mapped out on the course tool recently. Course loops around the Galleria Mall here in Henderson, and based on the map was right at 1.25 miles. I figured it was worth a shot trying it out as it would be easy to run long tempos here with decent feedback on the pace. I figured out approximate locations for quarter markers and then timed them as I was running. The markers were not too far off, but they were definitely not accurate. However, I am pretty sure that the overall distance is very close to what the course tool says. Another bonus is that since the course runs around the mall there are bathrooms just inside that I can use (no more bushes for me!). The course itself rolls a fair amount, with downhill during the first quarter, uphill during the last quarter, and rolling in the middle. I don't think it will be a particularly fast loop, but I don't think it will be particularly slow either. For my run today I ran to the mall, ran 5 miles on the tempo loop (last loop in 6:27, 5:09 pace, HR max 183), after which I ran to the high school just to make sure that when the effort was equal I was running the same speed on the track that I was running around the mall. After that I ran home. I was originally going to run 10 miles, but after I got to the track I realized that I was a little shorter than I had originally planned (I thought that the mall was farther away from my house than it ended up being) and I just decided to call it good at 9 miles. I am not going to worry too much about daily mileage totals for another week or so and it was only a mile short, so I figured it was good enough (plus it was close to 90 degrees outside... that was a big part of the decision to be honest). Total time was rather quick, 1:00:45 for 9 miles as I was really cruising early on (subconsciously I think I was trying to impress all the people driving by, so I sped up), plus I ran the last mall loop pretty fast. | 