Just got back from a tempo run that kicked my butt. I started out with a 2 mile warm-up (actually a bit less). The whole time I was thinking about how I didn’t want to start the tempo portion. As I got closer to the point where I start the dread faded away and I was off. Pretty quickly I found my HR to be pretty high, higher than I would think it would be for my pace. But it was the third running day in a row so I guess it is to be expected. My first mile clocked at 8:08 with my HR staying around 170, too high. I slowed a little for the second mile coming in a 8:27 with the HR creeping up to 175 or so. I was really feeling the effects of the run, but that’s the way it is supposed to be so I kept on. My lat tempo mile really slowed down to 9:12 and the HR still kept going up. By the time I finished and pulled into the park for water I was feeling really woozy, almost dizzy. Water helped a bit and once again illustrated the need to carry it with me. I had every intention of bringing it, but as often happens I forget to strap it on. I finished up the run with a couple miles of cool down pace. My HR was still pretty high for this portion and I didn’t really try to get it down to 70%. I figured that was a lost cause and I didn’t really feel like plodding along. All in all I averaged 161 for the HR. Pace is of course screwy as I have more miles of warm up and cool down than I do tempo. All in all a great workout and I really feel like I did some hard work.

Once I got home I immediately grabbed a whey protein bar Greens+, very good stuff in there and 16 g of when protein. I really wanted something quick and I think it was a good thing not to wait too long to get something in my belly and protein for the muscle recovery. I added a green drink with protein powder and a big glass of G2 so I should be well on my way to recovering from this. Good quality run.