4 Mile Tempo

The only speed I have done since I have come back from injury has been fartleks. I have done 3X5 minutes with 5 minute recovery once a week for the past month. I have not done a tempo run since March. Today I decided to try a 4 mile tempo run. I did not have very high expectations and I didn't want to kill myself the first mile. My plan was to start out at a 7 minute pace and work down. The last time I did a 4 mile tempo (February), I averaged 6:29 pace (after a 1000). I did not want to shoot for that though because I haven't been training much with my speed. My first mile was right at 7 minutes, exactly where I wanted it. Mile 2 was 6:40. I slowed down a lot on mile 3 and ran it in 7:10 (mile 3 is the one with the most hills). Mile 4 was in 6 minutes! (I did have a downhill). Even though my splits were all over the place, I am very happy with how I did for my first tempo run since the end of February (there was also 16 mph wind). It felt so good to run at that pace again though (even though it was hard). Although my achilles is still a bit swolen, I have not felt it while running in a while. I am still stretching and icing though because I don't want to deal with that again! Now I am dealing with blisters on the bottom of my feet from my new orthodics...not fun!
I plan to do an easy run tomorrow and 10 miles on Tuesday. Summer base training starts June 1!