Pre-Race Thoughts/Goals for the TC 10 Mile

Let's first compare some training numbers: LONG RUNS and SPEEDWORK...

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My long runs haven't felt GREAT all summer, but they were better than last year:

In 2021, I was "coming back" from some achilles issues all throughout June and July. I spent a lot of the summer on the treadmill just so I could stop at a moment's notice if things started to act up (so I wasn't trained on any hills). In August and September of last year, I only had 4 runs that were over 10 miles until the week of the TC 10 Mile. (And the middle "pace miles" of those runs were 5 or 5.5 miles at 6:20, 6:21, 6:31, and 6:31 pace.)

This year, I had 7 runs that were over 10 miles in August and September. One of those was a fartlek, and of the remaining 6, 3 of them had "pace miles" at 6:20 or faster, and the other 3 were in the 6:20s. Of those 7 long runs, 1 was a fartlek, 1 had 5 "pace miles," 1 had 5.5 miles, and 4 had 6 miles of effort.

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Even more dramatic was the difference in speedwork from last year to this year:

In 2021, I did 3x1600 at the track in August, and 2x2 miles along River Road in Sept. Those were my ONLY 2 speed workouts from the end of May through the TC 10 Mile in early October!

This year, I got in some shorter speed workouts in June and July for the Raspberry Run 1 Mile. And then I kept it up (only lengthening the workouts for longer upcoming races) throughout the rest of the summer. I was sort of waiting for something to go wrong or an excuse to ease up some week, but I was lucky this summer. Here's the speedwork I've done since mid-June:

- 4x800 and 4x400
- 12x200
- 8x400
- 6x200 (see these first 4 workouts recapped here)
- 1 mile race
- 3 mile tempo
- 3x1600
- 4 miles building with the last 3 at tempo
- 5x (3 min hard, 3 min mod)
- Square Lake Triathlon
- 5x (3 min hard, 3 min mod)

Maybe the 1 mile race and the triathlon don't count as "speedwork," but that's still 9 other ACTUAL speed workouts in the last 3 months or so, which is HUGE for me. I had some back-to-back weeks of shorter speedwork leading up to the 1 mile in mid-July, but then a pretty consistent schedule of speedwork every-other week, which is about all I can safely do before risking getting injured. I couldn't have asked for much more out of my summer of running!

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So what does that mean for this year's race?

Honestly, until I looked at those numbers, I figured I'd be lucky to be where I was last year. Last year, I really suffered my way to a 1:02:00 finish when I had stated pre-race that SUB-1:02 was my best possible goal (soooo close). But I forgot I had so few decent long runs last year. (But I remembered I had VERY few speed workouts last year.)

So I suppose I can throw out the same goal this year, but it should be MORE POSSIBLE to hit (according to my training this year vs last year). So let's see if I can go sub-1:02 for the first time in 4 years (after being over 1:02 in my last 3 10 mile races). Maybe I can hit 6:10 pace if I'm lucky! (I'm still nervous saying that based on not STELLAR long runs over these last few months.) And I'll have to put up with a decent amount of suffering down Summit Ave, and I don't know how I feel about that - my running this summer has shown that I've lost some of my "suffering over longer distances" skill.

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Race plan? Embrace what is comfortable.

Many years ago, I learned I like to "ease" into a race and then negative split it. But I also learned I could be faster if I suffered (and then hung on to that suffering) through a faster start.

At last year's race, I had planned to start off a bit easier, but then I found myself at 24:30 at mile 4 - the problem was thinking I'd start easy while ACTUALLY averaging 6:07 pace when an overall average of 6:12 was going to be my best possible day. Oops. That's not "easy." Then the wheels fell off and I had back-to-back-to-back mile splits of 6:26, 6:25, and 6:24.

So I still think I'll try to ease into this race a little. Maybe shoot for being a bit SLOWER than last year at mile 5 with the intention of being able to knock out some of those later miles (like mile 6 through 8) a bit faster. Hopefully. Last year, I hit the half-way point at 30:57 and then ran the 2nd half just a bit slower in 31:03. Compare that to my last sub-1:02 10 mile in 2018 where I was SLOWER at the half-way point (31:08), but then really negative split the race (30:33) to finish in 1:01:41. That was a big year of "double stroller" runs, so maybe I had extra strength because of pushing my 2 boys. But if I hit this race PERFECTLY, that 1:01:41 might be possible!

Stay tuned....