Saturday, November 21, 2009

Pre-Race Thoughts - Cold Turkey 10K

Tomorrow morning I am running the Cold Turkey 10K near Annapolis. I normally run the Bethesda Turkey Chase on Thanksgiving Day, but we're hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year stuffing and roasting turkey.

What's strange is that I'm normally a bit more excited for a race than I am for this one. I've put very little thought into running this race and I have no idea what the course is like (hilly? crowd support? loop or out-and-back?). All I know is that I'm pre-registered (bib number is 93! I don't think I have ever had a bib number that low!!!).

Once I started thinking about the race earlier today, I became a bit nervous. With the marathon training I know that I can run better than my previous 10K race PR of 56:14. However, with my recent training of fewer miles (15 miles last week and with the 10K race I'll have 15 miles this week), I'm not sure whether all of that conditioning is still there. What a letdown it would be to NOT get a PR when a month ago it would have been a sure thing.

My strategy will be to try and run around a 9 minute mile pace for the full race and if I feel good in the second half start to pick up the pace. Worst case is that I run out of steam, need to slow down and I don't get the PR. Either way, I think I'll do better than my last few 10Ks - all Turkey Case races of over one hour.

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