Notes
After 2 miles and a bathroom break, I put my flats on and headed to Denmans to start my tempo on some flat trails. I didn't start nearly as fast as my last tempo here (I wasn't feeling the greatest today either), but I wanted to feel decent by the end. The trails felt good but, surprisingly, the 1 mile bike path trip back to Rollercoaster felt possibly better.
Now I was back on some hillier trails and tried to keep my pace on the uphills and not lose control on the downhills (not sure I achieved either). The tempo ended up being 33 minutes long and I felt fine by the end. Next up were some hill repeats. Unfortunately after just 2 hills, I needed another bathroom break. By this time I was running out of time (meeting someone at climbing gym) so I just ran back to the car with a few hard uphills as I went.
Part of the problem was also finding a good hill to do repeats on - it seemed they were either too steep (hard to even get footing) or not steep enough (basically sprinting slightly uphill). But I'm being picky, plus I should probably do the too steep ones as that's what my upcoming races will have.
Speaking of hill repeats, I realized I haven't really been doing any this year. Obviously Des Moines has a lot more hills than Cedar Falls and I'm running them nearly daily, but not in workouts. I'd say I'm better at hills than a year ago, but who knows what I'm leaving on the table by not doing repeats. Just a thought.