How's the weather in Michigan lately?

With your impressive 4 mile tempo run, I just guess you should have a good chance of breaking your previous record.

I too have a 5k this weekend and will be my 1st serious 5k this year. I will be attempting to break my 21:05 time on the same course last Aug. I don't think I am all the way back yet, but I think my pre-race prep was bad and I made some strategic racing error the last time I ran that course. I did hit mile 2 in 13:22 or so last time when I finished with 21:05. I was relying on the Garmin 205 virtual partner function to set my pace but then at a point, I was suddenly a couple of hundred yards behind and I just gave up. I have since then trained to monitor my pace using lap pace function. So, even though I might be a bit slower, I might be able to run a faster time.

But even if I crash after 2 miles this coming Sun, it would have been a good training run for me. And the good thing, this is a monthly race and I can try 4 weeks later. And iti s only $5 for a certfied race. What a bargain.

Hope you are getting some nice weather to help with your prep!

If you are going to race very often, I don't see any harm to be agressive and go after your stretch goal. If you don't make it, you know you are not there and then you will work harder and smarter for it.

Since I am going to run a 5k almost every month, I really don't mind bombing it for going at my stretch goal pace in the 1st mile or two. You never know, may be we can gut it out the last 1 or 2 miles and reach our goal.

Well, this Sun, my stretch goal is only sub 21. I did a 5 mile tempo in 36:41(and 4+ miles in warmup/cooldown) and a 9 mile easy in a bit over 77 min. I will rest for a bit because of the tough 3.5 week of training and then run some easy miles the day before the race.

Weather should be fine here in Northern California. It may be a bit chilly in the morning but should be fine.

I was not able to to do it until I teamed my tempo/interval runs up with long and med. long runs. My problem was not the top end I could consistently pull sub 6:00-6:15 times for my first 2 miles but always faded bad in mile number 3. Once I started adding to my long run and added a second longer run to build endurance I was able to tighten up my splits. I think I went a little to far with trhe speed work and I was burnt out by fall but it was a great summer. You walk a fine line with the speed work and it almost sounds like you are maybe pushing a little to much. Maybe work on the nedurance and just try and maintain you speed and hit a race with fresh legs and a strong will. I have always found that a strong 5K is about a 50/50 split between training and your mind.

Keep up the great work!

What type of warm up did you do prior to your last race? Doing a good warm up was another thing that helped me with 5k races. I would run a slow 10 minutes and then do 6-8 100 meter strides making sure that I finish just before the race start. This way my heart rate is elevated and I am warmed up. It is very hard to ask your body to go from zero to 60 once the gun falls off.

This really helped me nail that first mile and settle in for my second mile. Once I hit the third mile it is will power until I can see the finish line and then the final kick.

It will come probably when you least expect it.