What a tempo today! I decided to do it in the evening. I realized that once the sun is down (or almost down), the temperature is very reasonable. It was theoretically 89 today, but it felt perfect. With no shirt, of course, but primarily because I didn't want bleeding nipples. Cheaper and works better than body glide. Plus it IS cooler with no shirt on if there is no strong sunshine. That is a fact.

OK, so this what I did today: I went to Seneca Park, and I ran the tempo on the 1.2 mile fitness trail. Somehow I don't like our neighborhood tempo course. It has too many turns, and just a bit too much elevation change. The Seneca park course has only 11 feet of climb per lap (1.2 mile), people around, a lot of runners, too.

The two miles of warmup felt sluggish, and I was worried that the run wouldn't be great. I did the warmup at 8 min/mile. I also felt a bit warm. It was cooling down outside, but the sun was still out (8 o'clock). After the second mile, off I went. The first fast mile was 6:26.48, and then I knew I would be fine. If the first fast mile is much faster than what I am aiming for, it means I'm in a good shape. I was aiming for 6:40. I slowed down a bit, doing the second mile in 6:36.40. The third mile I meant to run in comfortable pace, so that I would get under 6:40 in 4th again, but it turned out to be 6:33.22. The 4th mile I let myself loose and ran a 6:27.98. I could have done a 5th with 6:30ish pace, if I wanted to.

That's great! Average pace 6:31/mile. Absolutely perfect tempo pace. Also, 4 miles in 26:04. It looks like I went through 5K under 20:30. In a tempo training run. Cool!

It was hard to get myself to finish the cooldown, but I did it. Sweat again saturated my shorts and was running down on my legs. But now I'm acclimatized. It didn't feel uncomfortable.