Thoughts on my "Birthday" 10 Miler

This "100% Irish For A Day 10 Miler" is not going to be a PR race, but I still hope to have a decent showing. I'm pretty sure I can do sub-65, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's supposed to be windy and wet, so that could slow me down a bit. (I can take "cold," I can take "rain," but BOTH really suck the life out of me.) The big thing I need to do is to go out a little easy - I do NOT want to go out too hard and pay for it in the last half of the race.

Here's a breakdown of my only other two 10 mile races from back in October of last year:

	TC 10 Mile, Oct 5, 2009	Monster Dash 10 Mile, Oct 31, 2009
First 5 Miles	32:09	30:50
Last 5 Miles	30:34	31:29
Fastest Mile	Mile 10 - 5:40	Mile 5 and 10 - 6:08
Slowest Mile	Mile 1 - 6:35	Mile 8 - 6:31
Overall Time	1:02:43	1:02:19
Photo Near the Finishline
Comments	Felt great throughout, really enjoyed myself, and finished strong!	Happy about my start speed, but felt like death for the last 3 miles.

So the main point of that table above is to show that when I push harder at the beginning of a race (like a REAL runner), I can bang out a little faster time. BUT, I end up feeling dead for the last few miles (as seen in my numbers and in the photos). If instead I start out a little easier, I'll finish with a slightly slower time, but I'll finish STRONG (and smiling instead of grimacing).

You know what, it's my f-ing birthday, so I'll run this how I want to!! ;)

I'll update my Twitter feed when I get home, and I'll be back with my race report tomorrow! Off I go!.....