New Years is behind us and PR’s are now securely documented for the Joe Davis run. It is now time to take our fitness to new levels and a tempo run through hills is a great way to do it. We are headed to our now standard Piper Glen route for this week’s Devil’s Turn.
We will launch from the 4 Mile Creek Greenway parking area http://goo.gl/maps/Whecl at the corner of Rea & Bevington on Thursday morning at 0515. There are 4, 6, and 7+ mile options available. See below for the options:
1) Standard Blue Pill (4 miles) – Run 0.75 mile apartment loop, out to Piper Glen, run the Old Course loop and back to lot (perhaps with a little makeup distance down Bevington Place). All this done at a comfortable pace.
2) Aggressive Blue Pill (4 miles) – Do all the above, but instead of a consistent pace, run 1.5 mile at “easy” pace, 1.5 miles at “marathon” pace, and 1 mile at “easy” pace.
3) Red Pill (6+ miles) – Run 1 mile at “easy” pace building to 2 mile at “marathon” pace, 1 mile at “threshold” pace, 1 mile at “marathon” pace, then cool down with 1 to 2 miles at “easy” pace.
Find your applicable paces at the following link: http://runsmartproject.com/calculator
The Piper Glen Hill Routes (both 4 and 6 mile) can be found in the original post here: http://f3nation.com/2014/06/18/devils-turn-preblast-time-to-hit-the-hills/
A quote is included below from www.halhigdon.com on the idea of tempo runs.
A Tempo Run of 30 to 40 minutes would begin with 10-15 minutes easy running, building to to peak pace for 10-20 minutes near the middle, then 5-10 minutes easy toward the end. The pace buildup should be gradual, not sudden, with peak speed coming about two-thirds into the workout. (You don’t need to maintain peak speed for more than a few minutes toward the middle of the workout.)
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