Goal pain

Wanted to tell you about last nights’ run.  It was supposed to be a tempo pace workout. Since I run by feel without any techno gadgets, Tania explained how the target pace should feel, I was going to do 5 x 5 min runs around 5:25 / km pace. 

So, I have to learn the difference between “sprinting” and “tempo” pace….It turns out that I spent almost the entire 30 minutes that I ran running at almost sprinting to actually sprinting levels.

I only started to think about it when I realized that if Tania thought that I could maintain this pace for at least a half an hour, then I must be going too fast as I had to stop and suck air on at least 4 different occasions (with walking in between too).  I got so scared that I am actually not in very good shape as I was not able to keep up that pace that I thought was required (until I realized my mistake).  After the workout, I realized that I may have been running at or about the 5:25 tempo pace that Tania suggested, off and on during ALL of my runs by myself for the last month! 

 It was a hard lesson to learn.  I am glad that I did it if for no other reason that I can learn two things : 1) how to find my tempo and hold it for a long time and 2) gives me incentive to take my training even more seriously by reminding me that I have a big challenge ahead of me and that it will take a lot of work to get the result that I want to get.