Saturday 6/27/15 - 4 mile tempo

With no race or track workout planned for this weekend, I decided to put in my first tempo run of the year, and I dragged Vasilis along. We did an easy 2 mile warm up at 6:50 pace then got right into the tempo when we hit the Storrow Drive side of the Charles River Esplanade. The plan was 4 miles at 5:10 pace. I feel like I'm in good enough shape that I need to start focusing on 5:00 pace and lower for this type of workout, but I wanted to prove to myself that I had 5:10 under control after my poor performance at Market Square Day. Since the workout was my idea, I set the pace and came through the first mile just a bit quick at 5:05. I let the pace settle into 5:09 during the second mile and still felt good. During the third mile, I was starting to feel the effort but held the pace without over stretching. Vasilis dropped back a bit at that point, but I was glad for the company in the first half of the workout. Having him looming behind me also kept me honest during the second half of the workout. I would have felt like a jackass if I pushed the pace too hard early on and was then unable to hit the goal pace in the last two miles. Thankfully, my splits were fairly consistent as I came through miles 3 and 4 in 5:12 and 5:09. Mile 4 actually felt really good and gave me a lot of confidence about how my fitness is progressing. The remainder of the run was an easy cool down at 7:00 pace along the Cambridge side of the Charles. 11.25 miles in 71:57.