Speedwork, Part Deux

“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” -Bobby Knight

Tempo runs/race pace runs & hills.
Many runners have different definitions for tempo runs. On my training plan from halhigdon.com it says, "A tempo run is a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near 10-K race pace." (This specifies 10K race pace because that's the race I'm training for right now). "The pace buildup should be gradual, not sudden, with peak speed coming about two-thirds into the workout."
Jack Daniels, Ph.D. popularized tempo runs and he defines them as, "nothing more than 20 minutes of steady running at threshold pace" [Daniels’ Running Formula (Human Kinetics)]. Dr. Daniels says threshold pace is about 25-30 seconds slower than your 5K pace.
In high school, my coach said tempo runs were just race pace runs. The girls would run two miles as fast as we could and the guys would run a 5K as fast as they could. These were our race distances and we were just trying to mimic race day.
So, basically, a tempo run is a fairly short run (about 20 minutes) run at a pretty fast pace.

Hills provide a good way to get strength training. Basically, you run up a hill fast and then run down it at a pretty slow, recovery pace. You can gradually increase the amount of repeats as you do these workouts consistently. The best way to run up hills is to lift your knees to get a strong pushoff. To go downhill, your best bet is to lean into the hill to where you feel like you're going to fall on your face. This will decrease the pounding and help save your quads. You also want to shorten your strides on the downhills.

That's about all I have for speedwork. The best way to incorporate speedwork into your normal training is to have recovery days after your fast days. Your muscles need time to recover and rebuild. Depending on how advanced of a runner you are you can recover in one of several ways. You can either take the day off complete, do some sort of cross training, or go on easy runs of varying distances. Experiment (starting with the easiest option) and see what works best for you.

Training:
S: 3 mi (easy), 25:00.24
M: 4 mi (easy), 33:13.04
T: 3.87 mi (supposed to be a tempo run), 34:20.81 - My shins were really hurting so I walked a little bit and ran really slowly for parts of this workout.
W: rested b/c of my shins. :(
Th: Speedwork, 2 mi warmup, 7x400 (82 s, 84 s, 87 s, 88 s, 89 s, 89 s, 87 s), 1 mi cooldown
F: rested
S: rested again - for my shins & my allergies are acting up.