Space City Alliance 10 miler !

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One may be amused by few things in the 10 miler Space City Alliance race on coming Sunday.

1) It is the first race in Houston marathon warm up series.
2) It happens to be on 10/10/10
3) It is a 10 miler race

So what? What makes this race special? I have only run this race once. I ran it last year when I had just come back from a 5 week long vacation to India. I had lost lot of conditioning in those 5 weeks but I decided to run it to gauge my fitness level. The race went all right and I finished in 1:11:xx. However, my legs were cramping up from 6 mile onwards and it was painful.

This year, I feel that I am better shape than last year. I experience no aches/pain while I run and I am looking forward to the race. If the weather is good, I would like to run sub 1:07 in the race which translates to 6:42 min/mile or faster. It is an aggressive goal because I haven't raced much in last couple of months. I raced toughest 10k few weeks back and couldn't hold 6:40 pace on hills. But, I run better on a flat course and it seems to be a flat/fast course ideal for a PR.

My only dilemma is the pace for first mile or so. Almost in all short distance (upto 10K) races, I don't modulate my pace much during first mile and because of fresh legs I run first mile little faster than overall race pace. I believe this is not a bad strategy and I might stick with it. I want to break the race into two sections of 5 miles each and try to run each section in about same time.

I also bought new pair of light weight trainer (Asics Speedstar 4). They feel incredibly light on my feet and seem to have enough cusion as well. I will test them on the race day and see if they bring me any closer to my race goal.

Cheers,

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