10-Mile Tempo

Today was my first rainy day in Chicago, and even though I went out last night (again) I really wanted to take advantage of it. Aside from really enjoying runs in the rain, it's always good to brave the elements on occasion in case something crazy happens on race day. Still, by the time I left Aqua around 10 a.m. for my run the rain had subsided a bit and I thought maybe I had lucked out. Anyways, the meat of today's run was a 10-mile tempo run (target 5:50 pace) sandwiched between a 2 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down. With ini the 10-mile tempo, I wanted a controlled 9 miles, then the last mile at threshold pace.

My warm-up was sluggish and I was a little worried my legs wouldn't wake up in time for the workout. Once I got going I went right into 5:40 ish pace and had to make a concerted effort to slow down. Somehow I ended up keeping this pace for the entire workout and actually negative splitting. Since I was already two miles from home, I ran further south for 4 miles and then flipped. At around mile 2, the skies opened up and I was suddenly running straight into a thunderous downpour and into a headwind, but somehow kept the pace. I just tried to focus on getting to mile 4 then using my tailwind to coast through a few miles. I coasted through 7-8 miles and even dropped it down a bit despite some stomach issues, 9 was a little tough, and then "dropped the hammer" on mile 10, though it wasn't quite as fast as I would have liked. Splits for the run are as follows:

10 mile tempo: 56:15

5:42, 5:43, 5:42, 5:43, 5:40, 5:40, 5:36, 5:35, 5:37, 5:16

Ended on Lakeshore drive near Aqua, and finished with a sluggish 1 mile jog back to my place. All in all, very pleased with the workout, probably won't tempo again until the 1/2 Marathon in 10 days. 38 days until the marathon.