Evening watchless 6k tempo

Yesterday was my day off.

Today I have planned my tempo run and I did it with my brother. For today We have planned a 6k tempo run, We have been doing 5k tempos, but its time to step up once again. I had around since November since I did 6k tempos and now I apparently am in better shape than the 30:11 that I did on November.

The goal for today was to run 29:50s or 30:00s, I was not to force the pace. In fact, as I race without a watch and I am racing a 5k race next Sunday, I decided to do my today`s tempo without a watch, just by effort.

We warmed up 15 mins and I did 5 x 50m or so strides to get the legs loosen up. Then it was time to start the tempo, I started out at a pace that was challenging, but I could sustain for more than 45 mins. My brother wore a watch but He does not look at it during the tempo, so both were running "blind". However, I have done enough tempo to run pretty much the effort/pace that I should be running. My brother gapped me after the first 500m and I could never bridge that gap, I did not force my pace, but He ran pretty strong today. In the second km He had a gap of 10 seconds ( I counted it in my head), in the 3k (turn around point) I could close the gap, and the gap was only 3 seconds or so, I lost a couple of seconds when I was going to make the turn, because  another runner was coming in that very moment, then I thought that I would catch my brother, but the gap got bigger and bigger and I sped up because I felt more loose and felt the turnover faster, so He must have accelerated even more than me, I just forget about him and focused on keeping the same effort/ pace till the finish, always analizing if that effort could be sustained for a long time to keep the tempo as honest as possible. I felt confortable, but at the same time felt unconfortable, I think that is how a tempo must feel, in the last mile I was running with another runner and used him to keep my focus and tried to accelerate a bit without going over the top, the gap that my brother had on me in the 4th was 17 seconds or so ( that is what I counted in my head), He finished in 29:32, I finished 9 seconds back in 29:41 I must have accelerated in the last km to bridge some of the gap, I finished at the same speed though! I was surprised with the time, I thought that I ran slower, happy about the time and effort. Loving these hard workouts! I skipped the 200m strides today because I was somewhat tired and tomorrow morning We have 90 mins planned, so I did not want to over do it.

Cooled down for 1.7k to complete 10k total. Weather was good, wore my windbreaker. According to my brother`s watch We did a huge negtive split, the first 2kms were slow for me, but then I warmed up and could increase the pace. Anyway, good effort for a good workout!