Santa Rosa Tempo Run

Time: 75:35
Distance: 11.88 miles

W/u: 24:11 for 3.08 miles
W/o: 5 mile tempo at 5:10-5:20 pace, 5 min. rest, 5 x 1 min hard w/ 1 min rest
C/d: 11:07 for 1.47 miles

It was a great morning for a tempo run in Santa Rosa. I jogged from the friend's house that I stayed at last night over to the start line on Channel Drive. I was using a popular section of road that is close to Annadel and Spring Lake. It's frequented because of little traffic, relatively flat surface and quarter markers. My high school team used to run workouts along this section all the time.

The goal for the morning was to run a relatively controlled 5 miles and then attack the "minuters." I had a pretty big range in pace that gave me some flexibility to push if I felt good (5:10) or back off it I didn't (5:20). I figured a 5:15 average (26:15 total) would be a good measure going into the minute efforts.

Tempo Splits:
5:18, 5:10, 5:14, 5:08, 5:15 for 26:05 total

(5:00 rest for .64 miles or 7:47 pace)

Hard Minuters:
4:30 pace (7:11 pace)
4:22 (8:01)
4:14 (7:51)
4:26 (8:04)
4:36 (uphill finish)

The total time for my tempo and minuters was 40:17 and I covered 7.33 miles (5:29 pace)

I wouldn't have been happy with this workout had it not been for the hard minute efforts. I didn't all that great during the tempo run which is why the pace varied a little bit form mile to mile. I was sluggish off the line and struggled to get rolling with that 5:10 split. I remained relatively relaxed, but never really fell into a rhythm. The minuters were a different story. I wanted to lash the body with some hard, steady, efficient running. I think I did just that as I was able to have some pretty solid minute averages. My turnover was nice and quick and I could tell that my arm carry was good.