Feb. 24 (107 miles/week)

AM: 4 miles warmup, 10 miles tempo (at RRCA club championships), 4 miles cooldown, 18 miles total

I decided to go ahead and run the race this morning as a tempo run as planned, trying to take my mileage, fear of peaking early, and last week's 10k into consideration.

The goal was to run 5:40s over a difficult course, and I ended up running comfortably under that in 55:42 (5:34s). I was definitely relaxed, so this was a real tempo run, and not a race, which I was worried it was going to turn into given the setting. I shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow GRC'er Chris Bain through 7 or 8 miles when the hills broke us up slightly through the end.

Ultimately, the run turned out to be great practice for Boston: I got to practice drinking while running fast (I'd never normally when racing a 10-mile), going out conservatively at the start, and running some rolling hills.

I had a hard time not going out with the pack in the beginning of the race, especially since I saw some guys who I've raced against (and beaten) before. But, I really wanted to make this a genuine tempo effort, so Chris and I held back and spent most of the race rolling up guys who fell of the back instead, doing our best to keep the effort in check. As a result of going out conservatively, no one passed us the entire time, which was a good sign we were running steady.

The mile splits were all over the place; I can't be sure which ones were accurate, as they ranged from 4:45 and 5:13 to 5:49 and 6:36. Judging from the effort, we even split the race halves. Even on the hills, I never really rigged up. The only real stinger was a decent hill around 6 miles, but after that we rolled through them well enough without much fighting.

We did a long-ish warmup and cooldown to make it a full long run for the day. I was admittedly hesitant to run a tempo run during a race, worried that my ego was going to get in the way, so I'm glad it worked out. That being said, I'm definitely looking forward to racing an 8k in a few weeks.