Was that a confusing enough title for you? The official workout for today was pretty simple: 2×2000M at marathon pace (1:59/lap), 4×1000M at half marathon pace (1:53/lap), then 4×400M just a little faster (1:50/lap). Compared to my normal speedwork times those should have been no problem at all. It got easier, though, because since I’m racing the 10K on Sunday I only had to do half of those! Its a little ironic since I’m not actually tapering yet, and I think I could have comfortably done the full workout without being tired, but I’m not going to argue the point.

After the normal 1.6 mile warmup and half mile of drills, we stood back and watched while one of the Rogue groups slogged their way gently around the track. I jumped right into the first 2000M with Mike, Carrie, and Amy - it was so easy! I mean, it should feel easy considering that its only 5% of a marathon, but still. Simple. The two 1000M repeats were really no harder, which is a very good sign when it comes to my 10K goal on Sunday. For the 400M laps I was supposed to be doing a 7:22 pace, but even going relatively slowly (for 400M) I knocked almost a minute off of that goal. On the final lap I fell in behind Kenny and just ran his (1000M) pace for a while, concentrating on good firm abs and fast turnover. That netted me a sub 6:00 pace which, while solid, wasn’t a huge effort for me.

This was another interesting workout in that I realized that I’ve become someone I used to just look at as they passed me. On the 2000M repeats especially our little block of four runners was trotting around very easily, weaving in and out of other people from Rogue who were going fast (for them), while we chatted, joked, laughed and didn’t think twice about pulling out into lane four for the turns if it was empty. I used to be one of the slow runners. Now I’m still slow compared to the people I train with, but it was a bit of a wake up call to find myself one of the “fast,” especially when we were taking it easy. In a good way.

So, that was it. I may or may not run tomorrow, depending on how I feel. Saturday will be a comfortable four miles followed by Jay’s stretching clinic, and then Sunday is race day. McMillan has my goal time at 44:45 (7:11 pace), but that assumes that I’ve been doing 10K specific training and am properly prepped, neither of which is particularly accurate at this point. I’m going to listen to my body first and foremost, but my current goal is to run even splits at a 7:20 pace, which works out to a 45:35 finishing time. Last year I managed a 51:39; this is a different but comparable course, so I’m looking to shave off about a minute per mile. That’d be nice.

If its significantly hot, or I’m feeling more tired than I expect (and right now I’m expecting to be somewhat tired, just because its been a pretty hard few months and I haven’t started the taper yet), I’ll back off. My current PR is a 48:43, or a 7:51 pace, set in pretty crappy conditions 3 1/2 months ago. Since I tore that down in a 10 mile trail pace run not too long ago, I’m feeling very confident in a solid PR even if I do back off from my goal.

And if I feel great? I’m not going to tell you that getting sub-45 wouldn’t rock, but we’ll see how the day goes. New York is my focus right now, and I’m not going to screw anything up five weeks out because I get cocky. At least, I hope I won’t.

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