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Finish Feeling Like You Could Do One More

For the month of November, I've been working on 10k specificity. I had been planning on running the Rocket City Marathon in mid-December, but plans for that one fell through when the race director never received my elite athlete application. But no worries there, that just means I can put more emphasis on the Thanksgiving Day Race.

This one is a Cincinnati tradition 104 years in the making. (It's actually one of the oldest road races in the country, behind the Boston Marathon) Because it's more of a local race, I'm not racing for prize money or compensation or recognition; I'm racing for pride and Cincinnati bragging rights.

The Thanksgiving Day Race always brings out the best in the local competition, which makes it a challenge that I'm really looking forward to. And since I don't have to worry about any marathon training, I can really focus on the 10k distance.

For the past month I've been working with a coach (more on that in a later post), and we've been hitting 10k workouts pretty hard. I've been focusing on getting comfortable at goal pace, especially after mixing in some lactate threshold work to get the legs tired first. All of the interval work has followed the old Bill Bowerman edict: finish the workout feeling like you could do one more. Don't kill yourself, don't overdo anything, don't run the race in the workout. (That last one I've struggled with in the past)

So on Tuesday I finished up my final race-specific workout: 5 x mile on the track at pace. I tried to focus on staying relaxed and smooth in hitting even splits, and in that I was successful. At the end of the workout, my times were: 4:52, 4:53, 4:50, 4:50, 4:49. While the workout got tough at the end (and I may have been running a bit faster than pace), I definitely finished feeling like I had another mile in me.

But the questions remains: can I add one more mile at pace? Do I have that one more in me? I believe I do, but I'm excited to find out on Thanksgiving.

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