Thanks for the quick reply.

I typically do my long runs at 9:00-9:20 while the suggested time is 9:45.  Again, at 6'7" I find it nearly impossible to go that slow.  I agree that since my goal time is nearly a minute faster than the last time that I may want to be happy with that and stick with it.  It's just that things are night and day from the first time around as far as my commitment to training and phsysical level.  For me, at this point, I think it is more of a mental hurdle to trust that I can go even faster than 1:49.

I like the idea of starting out at goal time and re-evaluating five miles in.  Another idea would be to have my splits fall in a range (say 8:00-8:20) and just try to consistently hit my mark for the whole race.

Last night was the final hard workout before the race on Nov 15.  Plan called for 4X1600 at 7:38 with 800 recovery jogs and a warm-up and cool down (8 total miles).  I felt great again and did the 1600s in 7:24, 7:25, 7:17 and 7:28.  To see what I had left in the tank I tried to run the cooldown at race pace and was able to do it in 8:25.  At this point I feel confident that I can go faster than original goal.

Race strategy is to run the first five miles right around goal pace (8:19).  At that point, if it feels good I will pick it up and run closer to 8:00 for the next five miles.  Once again if all systems are go I will treat the final 5-k as a race and just start picking people off.  If I have nothing left in the tank I will just hold on for the final 5-K.  No matter what happens I will be stoked.  This has been a great experience and I will use this race experience to make adjustments to future races and traning plans. 

I'll let you know how it goes.