Catching up and faster than Tempo run

I took the day off on Wednesday since I have been running since previous Wednesday.

On Thursday I ran easy at 6:50 p.m., I was just thinking about running 40-45 mins easy, but brother had planned 65 mins since He is running the Valencia Half marathon on October 27th. We started together, but by the 2nd km He built a gap on me, I was just running easy so I stayed at my effort /pace. I ran by the running path in the Turia, got till 23:31, turned around and finished the run in 46:07, so almost did a 1 min negative Split, running at the same effort. Training is getting interesting. I tracked 4 kms in 6:07,6:11,6:05,6:03, all felt pretty easy and relaxed. That morning I did 4 sets of 15 push ups. Doing push ups about 1 time per week, but as I have said I need it to do it often. I think those have helped with my improvement. Felt good, good weather. My brother completed his 65 min run feeling pretty good also.

On Friday, I did not have anything hard planned, and as I was running errands since the morning (cooking, attending an interview past 4:40 p.m.) I thought that the run for today would be easy. When I was on my way to the Turia at 6:30 p.m., I decided that I would do something hard  since my last workout was on Monday and I felt good, so felt recovered.

When I was warming up 1 mile or so, I decided to do a 5k tempo, but I had the sub 26 mins in the back of my mind, since the last time I did 26:05, I could have run sub 26 mins of course, but a tempo run is a tempo run, not a time trial, but today for some reason I wanted to run sub 26 mins.

So the " tempo" started and I crossed the 1st km in 5:11 feeling good, if I wanted to run sub 26 mins I could not afford to slow down any more, so I tried to maintain the same effort/pace, even increase it a bit, 2nd km came in 5:08 (10:19), ok I said I feel good and the splits are getting faster, I know I can run sub 26 mins without feeling like a race or time trial, I kept the effort going and crossed the half in 12:52, right where I wanted to be, at that time I knew that the sub 26 mins was secure, given how good I was feeling and how "easy" the pace felt. After the turned around, a guy was a bit ahead of me, but I was following my pace and I gradually caught him , crossed the 3k in 5:04 (15:23), then We were running head to head, but as I said I was running and my pace and He increased effort and pace when I passed him, so We were running side by side for almost 1 km, just before the 4k mark for me He had built a gap of around 10m and I crossed the 4th km in 4:58 (20:21), at that time I did the math and was planning to do the 5k in 25:20 or so ( my brother`s last tempo was 25:16), with 1k to go, I Increased the pace a bit as I was feeling good, caught the guy again with 500m to go, but this time I was to finish my run, so I would not let this guy to get ahead of me again, I passed and never saw him again, with 400m to go I really put the hammer down and was feeling pretty good, even accelerated more with 200m to go, kissed the sky and was punching like a sign of victory just before finishing in 24:56 (Last km in 4:35), last 200m in 47 seconds, when I saw 24:09 with 200m to go, i really raced the watch at that point since I knew that if I accelerated I would get sub 25 mins. Caught my breath for 1 min or so, before starting the cooldown mile. So did around 47 mins in 8.2k or so. Both halves were in 12:52 and 12:04.

I was really surprised with the way I felt on this one. On the first km I felt good but not great, but as the run progressed I felt better and better, the faster I ran the better I felt. I felt the same way as I felt in the November 5k race in Madrid where I ran 23:25, its like you push and push and push, and never get tired, today I felt the same way. Of course it was not a tempo effort in the second half since I pushed a lot, but I felt good and strong the entire way and the last km in 4:35 and the fast finish in 200m give me the confidence that great thing are coming at least in the running world for me.

I had around 4 years that I did not run sub 25 mins in training, so I am very happy about that. The way I am feeling is awesome, I had several years that I did not feel so good. I have not weighed myself recently but I know that my weight loss has to do with that and the way I am eating is helping a ton also. I am basically not eating till stuff, only to feel satisfied, so I feel that after each meal I could sprint as hard as I could without problems, unlike before where I only eat for pleasure and to feel very full. I think I am addicted to good food and if I continue to eat like I am now, I think that my running Will go well, if I start to eat like a pig once again, my running Will get backwards.

Now I am realizing the importance of good nutrition for either, the weight loss and performance. Heck! I am less than a month since I started running normally again after the calf strain. I hope that everything go well. The weather has algo played a big role in the last couple of days with temps in 20-25 Celsius with cool breeze.

This evening is an easy 40-45 min run to recover and absorb the hard training!