5 Mile Tempo Fail

Goal: 
5 miles at 545 pace

Actual:
3 miles warmup
4 miles at 600 pace (609, 555, 557, 600)
~3 miles cooldown for 10 miles total

right now I'm visiting Garrett in NY so this post will be short.  This was another early McAlpine 6am run with Billy, John, Eric, and Mike Kahn.  I got a deep tissue massage the night before from Byran Bullock of Zenriffic Massage and could definitely feel the effects of it in my legs.  During the warmup I felt flat and the humidity seemed to be the worst it's been the entire summer.  Suffice it to say, I took the lead for the first mile of this tempo and we came through in a crawling pace of 609.  I pushed the pace to drop it below 600 for the next two miles, but during mile 4, I felt too labored for such a short tempo.  In fact, I felt much better the previous week, when I did a 9 mile progression tempo with last four miles under 600 and my last mile under 550.  This week, that was not going to happen.  Instead of coming away feeling terrible about running a mile over 600 for my last mile, I decided to pull the plug and jogged to meet the guys as they finished up.

I probably shouldn't have gotten such a deep massage the night before a workout, but it was the only time I could squeeze in before Albany and Beat the Heat 5k.  I allow myself 1 bad workout about every 3 weeks, so this is my first one.  I'm ready for Beat the Heat, just need to do some easy running over the next couple of days.