Thursday Tempo

Normally, there would be hundreds of walkers, joggers, and dogs circling the Chestnut Hill Reservoir at 6:30 on a summer evening, but tonight we're lucky. Heavy rains earlier in the afternoon and a persistent gloom have kept away most of the fair-weather exercisers. Our only obstacle will be negotiating a path through the flock of geese that have parked their feathered behinds in the middle of the gravel path and now eye us with deep suspicion.

Noah and I have driven out from Newton to do a tempo run -- a sustained run of about twenty minutes at "lactate threshold" pace -- about 20s slower per mile than our 5K race pace. For Noah, it is his second tempo run of the summer. He's looking for company after his first run turned into a mental struggle. It's a funny thing about this kind of workout -- it is much, much easier to run fast and relaxed with a training partner than to negotiate the faster-than-normal-training pace by yourself. I haven't done a tempo run all summer, but I've done a bit more speed than Noah. Tonight, I hope to start a progression of tempo runs over the next several weeks, and I'm hoping to latch on to Noah's superior speed and let him tow me along.

When it's not crowded, the reservoir is an ideal venue for this kind of running. The loop is about 1.6 miles around and almost perfectly flat. Mostly, the surface is hard packed dirt or gravel, and on a wet night like this, it's nice and soft.

After a warm-up and a couple of strides, we set off clockwise, taking a somewhat risky path through the geese. My goal is to run at about 5:45 pace, but do the first mile a little conservatively, in case that's a little too fast. The key to a tempo run is to run at your lactate threshold pace, not faster. Running faster (especially at the beginning) usually reduces the amount of time that you run at the proper pace, so it's fool's gold. This isn't an interval workout, it's a steady run.

I'm a tiny bit disappointed when we hit the mile in 5:52; to me it felt harder than that, and I hope I haven't over-estimated my fitness. Noah is running comfortably, and we keep the pace steady as we finish the first loop. We hit the second mile at 5:49, and I'm relieved. We're in a good rhythm, and although I am starting to breathe fairly hard, I know I'll be able to finish strongly. Noah takes the lead and accelerates every so slightly. I follow a few steps behind. It's definitely hard now, at least for me, and I'm happy that we're almost done. We can't help picking it up a little bit as the finish of the second loop comes into sight. We traverse the third mile in 5:42, and then it's another minute or so to the finish. I put in a miniature surge to finish within a few steps of Noah, who looks like he could go another mile without serious distress.

What I love about tempo runs is that they are hard when you are running them, but as soon as you finish, you feel you could do a lot more. This is exactly the sensation I'm aiming for -- the evidence that the run didn't get out of control with a drop down to race pace. After changing shoes, we jog a three-mile cool-down. As we finish up back at the car, the rain starts to come down more heavily.

With the tempo run behind us, and the rain settling in, all's right with the world.