Classic tempo - map and distances

This post is aimed squarely at Victory AC, but I'll add some pacing advice for the rest of you.

The run I described in "The classic tempo session" is pictured below, or at least the middle 'effort' part of the run. I was musing over how you can know what pace you are running at if you don't have a pacing device, when I discovered a happy coincidence with the mile markers:

Starting at the entrance to the Ship Inn, or the far side of the entrance where the pavement resumes to be precise, the 1-mile mark is on the far corner of Avenue Road, the third left on Hayling. (Click the 'Show Distance Markers' checkbox below)

The run continues, turning left down Victoria Avenue, left on Rogers Mead, right briefly on Avenue Road, left on Kingsway, left round the bend and right back onto the main road.

The 2-mile mark is then the entrance to Hayling Trailers, or this side of the entrance to be precise.

Returning to the entrance of the Ship Inn is a total of 2.65 miles, with roughly a 1.5 mile jog back to the Havant Leisure Centre (you didn't expect me to measure the whole run did you?)

So now you can check your pace, providing you have a watch, but what pace should you be running?

I'll leave you to re-read the advice of the original article for pacing, but I will add that you need to be fairly relaxed about your initial take up of pace. The sensations I describe of breathing heavily will only start to come on after a mile or so, and the longing for the end of the effort will only happen a bit further on. If you are breathing heavily after 100m then you have shot off too quickly.

It is better to get a feel for the pace rather than rely on pace tables, but the original article includes pace advice based on 10k times. The trouble is if you are improving then you should be running quicker than those paces. Also, if your typical 10k race is a fairly relaxed affair then you aren't going to be running your tempo runs fast enough based on 10k times. As long as you are breathing heavily at the end and wanting to slow down, without actually having flogged yourself to a standstill, then you have probably got it about right.

The above route gives about 20 minutes effort for a 48 minute 10k runner. For faster runners you'd be advised to keep running past the Ship Inn for your full 20 minutes. For the faster runners I'd suggest breaking it down into 2 15-minute efforts with a jog back to the main group as recovery between the efforts. Let's try to not get too spread out.

To my club, enjoy your run tomorrow, to everyone else, add 20 minutes of good effort to the middle of just 1 or 2 runs each week and you'll really notice the benefits. Go on, give it a go!