Here's my plan...

...and I hope to stick to it. I've entered this race tomorrow with the goal of completing a 15K progression run in the following manner:

- 1st 5K @ 5:40 pace (17:30/17:30)
- 2nd 5K @ 5:30 pace (17:00/34:30)
- 3rd 5K @ 5:20 pace (16:30/51:00)

The idea is to get in a longer tempo-ish effort without completely thrashing myself. So why enter a race you might ask? Quite simply, it has to do with productivity. For me, it's much more effective to do such a workout in a race environment than to attempt a similar effort by myself. Banging out long runs, fartleks and interval sessions all by my lonesome has never given me much trouble, but without fail everything goes to shit when it comes to the one-man planned tempo run. Perhaps it's a mental block or some other undiscovered ailment, but a longer, steady workout with prescribed splits has never treated me well. For whatever reason, I'm much more focused when I'm around other people in a race atmosphere, even if I'm not actually racing. Make sense to anyone out there?

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about the progression of my fitness over the last 6 weeks, so I believe the biggest challenge tomorrow will be holding back if I'm feeling good. The only exception I'll make to deviating from the aforementioned plan is if I'm within striking distance of a top-3 placing with less than 5K to go. At that point 5:20-pace gets thrown out the window and it becomes a matter of winning back my entry fee. Call it the Road Whore's great dilemma.

Quote of the day:

Type:	Easy Run
Distance:	15 mi
Time:	1:33:00 (6:12 / mi)
Comments:	ymca track 113 laps

- From Casey Moulton's training log