Pick up the Tempo

Today's workout was a tempo run.  Looked like it would be pretty good on paper:  2 miles easy, 2 miles at short tempo pace, finish with 2 miles easy.  The "easy" and "short tempo pace" are predefined as part of your training plan in Run Less Run Faster and they are based on your most recent race performance.  I had no quibbles with 'easy'.  The only real issue I had with today's run was the hills.

If you live in Colorado Springs, at the foot of the majestic Pike's Peak, there is one thing for certain you can't avoid when running - hills.  Or said differently, you can't find a flat course to run.  Now we all know that hills take more energy to run than covering the same distance flat.  And today's 6 mile course was no exception.  Every course starting from my driveway (or any place else I'm aware of in Colorado Springs) has hills.

The most reasonable information I have seen on the impact of hills, is that every 100 feet of elevation gain adds about 30 seconds to your time.  If you are running a loop or an out and back course, you might be thinking "Hey, wait, sure you have to go up hill, but you also get to downhill.  Net elevation gain is zero, so what's the big deal?"  You do get some of the time back, but only about 60%.  So for every +100 feet followed by -100 feet, you've just added about 12 seconds (for the life of me I can't find my reference for that handy fact).

I'll grant you it doesn't sound like much, but if the uphill comes during your "2 miles at short tempo pace" and the downhill comes later, that's a lot to make up.  And you may remember that in my interval workout I had backed off a little, so I was extra determined today to hit my target pace. The good news is I did hit my pace today.  It was hard.  Not near as hard as the interval workout, but I was definitely working.  I was a little to fast on the "easy" segments, so I have some work to do on finding my pace.

I think I understand the title better now.  I was thinking it was implying:  "Run Less and watch your race times improve = Run Faster".  It's beginning to feel more like:  "Run Faster, you'll end up running less".  I'm beginning to wonder about my long run on Saturday.  On paper it looks pretty reasonable.  It's a 13 mile long run at 50 seconds a mile slower than I just ran the Denver Half Marathon.  How hard can that be?  It is 20 to 25 seconds per mile faster than I have been doing my long runs, so I'm sure I will notice the difference.  But it can't be that bad.  Can it?

Tomorrow is a core training day.  No official FIRST training.  It should be a good day to write about a new perspective on an old friend that I have found myself thinking about recently.