was this tempo useful at all?

master with no mastery wrote:

I'm running a 5k marathon in a couple of weeks.

Last night I warmed up and did a 3 mile tempo, and egotistically hit it harder than I should have. Pretty relaxed and smooth for 2 miles, then the last mile was a real struggle to hold pace but I managed. Tempo goal pace was 7:00, but I went 6:40 - 6:47 - 6:34. Goal pace for the upcoming 5k is 6:25 (to break 20:00).

Did I run that too fast to even be useful? It turned into more of a time trial because I refused to back off the pace once I got rolling. I guess if anything, now I have a better idea whether I'll get close to goal on race day?

I'm a lot older since the last time I trained like this, so I forget how things tend to feel in training vs. racing. I'm pretty knackered today.

10/10, + you did not run a tempo you ran a time trial. It will probably benefit you but not necessarily how a tempo would. There is of course the chance that your 5k time will be more like 19:00 and this was indeed a tempo effort. Not really enough information to know. Be happy with the effort and recover.

- RS

RunnerSam wrote:

There is of course the chance that your 5k time will be more like 19:00 and this was indeed a tempo effort.

Ha, that would be nice. But I don't think it's the case. I was giving everything in the last mile except a final sprint to an imaginary finish line.

I probably needed someone to tell me to rest now (see: previous difficulty reining in ego).

Thanks for the input.