Tuesday Tempo

I had a look back at my race week training from 2011 which was the year I had the best race at Honu... For the most part I'm copying that week again this year, though with a few tweaks here and there. It won't work the same of course because my training the last few months has not been the same (even if it was the same it wouldn't all come together the same- it never does!), but what I noticed about that week was that it was overall both shorter and easier than I would normally train in a race week. That year I did a 50min run that included a 20min tempo on the Tuesday. I was going to do that today but then last minute decided instead to do a session I often give to my athletes that goes 10' tempo; 6x1' strong on 1' easy; 10' tempo again. I got that one from Lauren Fleshman when she was publishing her WOW (workout of the week) last year (or the year before?). It's similar enough to the 20 min tempo and I felt comfortable with it. My thought was that if I did the 20min tempo I'd likely run the same route as I did that 5 mile neg split last week and inevitably end up racing myself and prob working too hard... so this session- done by time- splits it up in a way that allowed me to get the work done without judgement b/c I went by time and effort not by pace or miles. Just a little tweak that I think made it work better for me given how my brain currently functions. I could have done that with the straight 20' tempo I know, but I wouldn't have. I would have raced myself. Anyway, long story short, it was a decent run. I wrote it up in my log and described it as 'good enough'.