Upcoming First Race of 2025

The "Get in Gear 10K" is upon us! It's just a few days away. It will end the longest drought between races since the pandemic started 5 years ago - I haven't raced since the TC 10 Mile back in early October, which was 29 weeks ago! (Over 6 months ago!)

For last year's Get in Gear 10K, I had the pre-race goal of PRing with a sub-36:46: I had the goal of trying to hold 5:50/mile pace which would have me come in around 36:20, but I let some middle miles slip away just a little and it still kept me under my PR goal finishing in 36:33.

I'm NOT going to be as fast as last year because I was injured after the TC 10 Mile and had a more relaxed Dec and Jan to make sure I was over it. My running wasn't as strong all winter like it was last year. And I haven't raced in over 6 months which is a rarity. My eating hasn't been very good over the last few months, and I'm up about 5 lbs since last year at this time (I don't religiously track my weight, but I do look at it now-and-then).

But I COULD be as fast as last year because my long runs have been good. I had 3 fast long runs in May and July of last year after last year's 10K, with the July long run having 6 miles at sub-6:00 pace for the FIRST TIME IN A LONG RUN EVER. And then over the winter, I had a treadmill run close to 6:00 pace in the middle of a long run and then broke that barrier back in Feb running 5:57 pace. (Then I out-did that the following week hitting 5:56 pace.) And then I did it outside last month on a hillier route than last summer's first time breaking 6:00 pace. That's 5 long runs in the last 8-9 months all faster than I've ever done before... that's something.

So will a lack of racing and lack of early-winter consistent training slow me up? Or will some faster "pace miles" in the middle of recent long runs help pull me to a faster finish? I have NO PLAN to PR, but just wondering how close to last year's 36:33 I can be. I think I can have a REAL goal of running sub-37:00 for the 10K, but I'm not sure what's realistic. Is sub-37 going to need a perfect day with perfect pacing? Or is a 37:00 goal kind of sandbagging?

At last year's GIG 10K, I was nicely consistent: my first mile was 5:53 and my last full mile was 5:52. I was perfectly spent by the end. I'm wondering if these "successful" recent long runs that have all been negatively split mean that I should start a bit easier and try to build to the finish. But the last half of this race is rough: a big hill just after half-way, and a nasty quick climb onto the Ford Bridge at mile 5.5. So I don't want to leave too much time to try to "get back" in the last few miles because of that.

I'll see if I end up going out easier or harder, and then just go with the flow. I need to make myself suffer for those middle miles to post a decent time!

(I also will need a nice day! Let's hope for great weather!!)

I've been feeling sluggish the last few days, even cutting my swim out on Tues, and I'll be just doing a super easy ride today. I woke up on Tues and Wed morning with my Garmin saying my "training readiness" was really low, and it told me to "rest." And I felt that way as well, so I'm not just concerned about random metrics on my wrist. So I'm hoping I can "rest myself to race readiness!" Yesterday, I ran easy and threw in 3 pick-ups of 1 min each:

Three faster pick-ups in red (running counter-clockwise).

We'll see what I can do this weekend!! Stay tuned!!...