Final Run Workouts and Pre-Race TC 10 Mile Thoughts

I posted about my last long run last Saturday, and I've basically had 4 easier runs since that run. I had a last burst of effort on Tuesday this week as I looked back to some old Jen Harrison workouts from 8 years ago. (Remember, she was the coach who got me to break 60 minutes at the 2010 TC 10 Mile.) I was feeling *just* good enough this year to do one of her final workouts from back then.

Five days pre-race, I did a 2 mile warm up, then 6 x (2 mins hard / 2 mins easy). Back in 2010, I did this pre-Garmin, and I mapped it out afterwards: I went 3.88 miles in 24:10. This year, my 2:00 hard and 2:00 easy looked like this (showing DISTANCE and PACE for each):

- 0.37 (5:29), 0.25 (8:09)
- 0.36 (5:41), 0.25 (8:03)
- 0.37 (5:27), 0.24 (8:15)
- 0.37 (5:30), 0.25 (8:09)
- 0.36 (5:38), 0.26 (7:47)
- 0.35 (5:42), 0.25 (8:08)

3.67 miles in 24:14

I felt good while doing this workout, and I felt REALLY good that splits were quite consistent: my HARD 2 minutes were all 0.37 or 0.36 miles, except for my last one (0.35) which had the most uphill section of the run. But after finishing, I saw that I did 0.21 miles less over the course of those 24+ minutes than I did in 2010. Of course, that's to be expected: I KNOW I'm not breaking 60 this year!

As far as goals for tomorrow's race, I don't have anything too lofty. I'd love to break 1:02 if possible. But I'm not sure what I can do. I've built up some nice short-end speed by pushing the stroller a lot this summer, but I don't have a ton of endurance. (Proof: in my 2 recent late-season triathlons, I had the 3rd fastest and THEE fastest runs. That means out of 550 people who raced against me in the last 2 tris, only 2 beat me. BUT, my overall mileage isn't all that great. Around 100 miles/month is where I'd LOVE to be if I didn't have to worry about injures, but I was just over 80 last month. [And only just over 60 the month before.] That's not a GREAT number to lead up to a [hopefully fast] 10 mile race. And only 2 training runs were over 10 miles.)

I suspect that I need to run it similar to last year's TC 10 Mile where I started a bit easier and negative split it pretty well (31:28 and 30:31 first 5 vs last 5 miles). I can't be too aggressive at the start because I don't have the training to suffer through that. We'll see what I'm able to do tomorrow!!