Stopping on a repeat, and paced by a 12 year old. Just your run of the mill tempo workout :)

The email last night to Jerry after the workout:

Little mental hic-cup tonight 🙁

Workout: 4×10-12 at tempo w/ 2 minutes rest, 2 mi WU and CD

Recap:
2 mile warm up. Legs felt a little rested, but weird. Like I didn’t have good control over them (or had sort of forgotten how to run?).
Started the 1st rep. Decided to do 11 minutes, in the middle of the Daniels range. Maintained 6:11 pace (around 1.75+ miles). A little bummed, since I really was hoping this would be a breakthrough workout, at the fast end of the pace targets, that it would feel easy, etc. Don’t know where that expectation came from – maybe because of the rest day (usually my legs recover quick) and the wonderfully cool weather. 6:11 is still fast!

2 minute rest, then started 2nd. Mentally pushed a little harder. 6:09 pace for this one.

Started 3rd. Had a hard time making my legs turn over right. After 1 mile, my watch clicked off & I looked down after 30 seconds. 6:30 mile pace for that little bit. It was up a little hill, but for some reason, mentally, I checked out & STOPPED. What?!? {the combined pace for everything at that point was 6:14, still within my target times}

Then I didn’t know what to do. Disappointed in myself. It was just 2 seconds of a mental check-out and there I was, stopped. Do I start again and finish the 4.5 minutes? That doesn’t make sense (at least for the purpose of the workout). So I decided to take 2 minutes of rest and start again. So, started the 3rd one again. I started this one with a lot clearer head (no expectations of trying to hit the faster end of my times, instead just focusing on running easy & finishing) and maintained a 6:08 pace. Legs weren’t as tight & moved a lot better too. Much more fun without expectations!
Then found a random biker on the 2 minute rest & asked if they would ride alongside me on the last one. She was 12 or 13  and bikes around the HS a lot so has seen me more than a few times.
She did & that helped a lot. Maintained 6:05 pace, and it was fairly easy.

So… I need to get better at running these things alone. I’m OK on the shorter reps (previously longest tempo reps were 6 minutes), but this was the first longer one. Need to work on getting that mental toughness back. I’m usually good with that, so I’m sure it’ll come. Also a good reminder just to run hard, without too many expectations.