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Today I ran my second tempo of the week. After looking at the forecast last night, I decided I'd try to make the morning workout. I'm not usually able to get up that early, but I figured I'd set my alarm for 5:00AM and see how it goes. I did make it (it's almost worth getting up that early to see the surprise on G's face) and, I have to say, I totally made the right decision. When I left work at 6 this evening, it was miserable outside. The rain had let up, but the temperature had dropped 15 degrees during the day and the wind had picked up quite a bit as well.

So it was a pretty small crowd this morning. I didn't really see anyone I knew I could run with, so I figured maybe I'd try to stay close to Arthur, though I didn't really think I'd be able to stick with him for the whole 4 miles.

Somehow that first mile ended up being ridiculously slow. My goal was to get as close to a 6:30 pace as possible, but when I hit the first half mile marker my watch said 3:29. Yikes! I figured I'd try to pick it up a little and maybe at least get under 6:50 for the first mile, but when we hit the bridge my watch said 7:01. Double yikes! I didn't feel like I was totally loafing. Arthur and I were (surprisingly) still together at that point, and we did manage to run the second mile in 6:40. Once we turned around Arthur took off and I pretty much let him go. I did mile 3 in 6:35. Arthur was probably 15 seconds in front of me at that point. I tried to keep grinding away, focusing on form and breathing (since I felt a slight stitch). As we got back on the trail after going under the railroad bridge, I could see Arthur had slowed down just a tad. I was gaining some ground, but there was no way I was going to catch him. Still, I put in an effort to finish strong for that last 600 meters or so and finished my final mile in 6:26.

We followed up the tempo action with a little cool down and then everyone headed off to do start the rest of their days. That is one of pities doing the morning workout (other than waking up so early): there's no post-workout loitering since everyone has to get to their jobs.

I'm sure this sounds like a broken record, but my performance was little disappointing. Nevertheless, I never had that oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die feeling that one can get during a tempo run, and my legs and lungs felt OK. Not so good that I felt like running faster, but not so bad that I wanted to stop. See? I can do the glass-half-full thing too.

I'm going to go on the record with my goals for the Starflight 5K: I'm shooting for a 6:15 pace which would get me through the course in just under 19:30. I'll live with a 6:20 pace, but anything slower than that and this blog will be taking a trip to mopey-town. You've been warned.