This morning's workout did not go as I had planned, and it was a little demoralizing. As I've written before, the past two years have found me devoting a lot of time to work-related and other assorted extracurricular projects. As a result, my training has been a little wobbly--or if nothing else, has not contained as much speedwork as it usually does.
And that brings us to this morning's tempo run, which was well within a range that should have been very comfortable for me. The problem was that it wasn't very comfortable, which surprised me. Most of that discomfort is likely due to the process of getting back into shape, which is fine.
However, I also very earnestly want to believe that part of that discomfort was due to a modest headwind that blasted me straight on for the last 2.5 miles of the tempo workout. When I turned into the wind, I sighed (out loud, to myself), and I adapted, ensuring that I was still maintaining a good pace while not pushing things too hard right at the start, because I had over two miles to go.
By the end, however, I was dead tired, and I was stunned, because it really didn't seem to be that windy. Also, my overall pace was comparably slow for reasons that did not make sense to me.
So, to Google I went, and it was there that I found this informative article from Runners Connect about the effects of headwinds.
For whatever it might be worth, the calculations that John Davis offers seem to make sense for this one particular workout that bugged me enough to write this post. If I had shaved about 12 seconds off of my pace per mile, I would have been right in my prescribed range. For now, this is solace enough.
Give the whole thing a read, and always remember to use the last workout--however it goes--as fuel for the next one.
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