8k Tempo Attempt #2

18 min. w/u (2+ miles)
4 mile tempo (6:18, 6:15, 6:09, 6:13)
~30 min. trail run and c/d (4 miles)
~72 mins
10 miles


Jordan was clearly exhausted from pacing my workout.

Um, yeah. So the whole "getting up early" idea really only works if you change your watch over from Central to Eastern time when you cross from Tennessee into Georgia. So. Needless to say, we made it out to the river a tad later than we had hoped. It was very warm and humid but contrasted with yesterday we might as well have been in the arctic. The plan was the same as yesterday, only I asked Jordan to take it out closer to 6:15 than 6:10 on the first mile and then go from there. After hitting the first two miles at a respectable pace, I started feeling decent, and picked it up a bit going through the third mile. That's when things started to fall apart. At about 3.25, I started feeling light-headed. Dizzy at 3.5. At the 4 mile mark I basically came to a dead stop and tried not to hyperventilate. There was no way I could've made it through another mile at that intensity without things going south dramatically.

After I caught my breath and gathered myself, we continued around the loop for our cool-down. I also wanted to show Jordan the Sope Creek trails that meander through the forest adjoining the river, so we ran through there a bit. That was by far the best part of the run, as it was cool and shaded and quite technical in spots (note to self: maybe don't wear the T5's the next time you attempt this portion of the run). We stopped down at a creek bed to splash some water and cool off, and almost bogarted a Powerade some guy had tied to a tree branch until we took a sniff and determined it had been there for quite some time.

Overall, I was disappointed that I couldn't finish the workout, but I was pleased with my effort during the first four miles. The looseness of the dirt probably also slowed each mile by a few seconds, so I feel as though I was pushing at 6:05-6:15 effort throughout. Clearly my body needs some rest and recovery this week, and I intend to comply with that wholeheartedly.