Tempo runs are a new thing for me. According to Runner’s World, a tempo run should be “comfortably hard”. Huh? So is it comfortable or hard? I have no idea! Let’s just say pacing is not my strong suit! 😄

As I start Week 2 of my marathon training, I decided that my tempo run today would be 3km of warm-up at conversation pace, 2km of “comfortably hard” pace, and then 3km of cool down at conversation pace. Since my conversation pace is around 6min/km, and my half marathon race pace was around 5:45, I decided that I would try to go at 5:30min/km as my “comfortably hard” pace. I had no idea if this is the right pace but I thought I would give it a try!

What actually happened:

I started my tempo speed way too fast. Strava told me I was going 4:33 min/km in the first 500m. 😂 So we slowed down a bit and ended up averaging about 5:00 min/km for 2km. It was probably a bit too hard since I wouldn’t have been able to sustain that pace for longer than 2km. Next time I’ll go slower. 😄

Nutrition log:

• Pre-run: banana and homemade granola bar 60 minutes before
• Mid-run: a few sips of water
• Post-run dinner: cheese tortellini (leftover from my daughter’s dinner 😝), 1 young coconut (water + meat 😎), Vietnamese red bean and tapioca dessert 😍