Boston -79 -- Sat. Jan. 30

Yesterday was horribly cold, windchill down to 0 or below, and work was long, so I was NOT going for a donut run, which left me 12-13 to do today. Fortunately, though very cold (16F), it was sunny and only barely windy. Plan was a tempo run, but longer distance: using a 4+ mile loop, do it twice, with a two mile warm up and similar cool down. Took trail from Austin G to warm up, going under the Yamaha tunnel, and stopping at 1 mile to stretch achilles, then down along GeoHannum to the Boardman turnoff: that's the loop start. Reset clock, and started on Boardman, all along to 202, up to Eskett, back to Boardman, then Rural and right on Geohannum back to start. Aiming for 6:50~7:15 range, and watching clock to adjust pace as I went. First lap felt okay, only pushing a bit on the last mile, and came in at about 7:00s. Reset clock, and off for second lap: quick, as I was already warmed up, so after a couple of 6:40s I really throttled back to come in at about 6:55s overall. At end of last mile, legs going a bit stiff, but okay. Then reset clock again and headed home back up GeoH, still running a bit hard: 7:18 going part uphill, so slowed right down and took rail trai to development, much slower. Overall, here are the two runs, laps first, then the before and after:

Time: 59:34 & 33:41
Distance: 8.55 miles & 4.29 miles
Pace: 6:58s & 7:51s

Comment: quite a revelation: an 8-miler, effectively, not at race/threshold pace, but close to what I consider a tempo pace (6:45 is my target tempo, when I'm doing just two miles of it). So, this is more of a distance tempo, a new part of my marathon prep. Next week, maybe I'll try three laps instead of two, again aiming for 7:00s.