Race plan: Capitol Hill Classic 10K

So I finally know what it means to treat a race like a hard training run.

That’s my race plan for the Capitol Hill Classic 10K on Sunday morning. I haven’t been doing anything resembling long runs in recent weeks—6 miles is about my limit these days—and the route in Virginia Beach where I do most of my training has an elevation gain of 26 feet. So I’m not expecting a PR.

I also don’t care to use this as a time trial, which is what I usually mean when I say that I’m using a race as a hard training run. I’m sure I’ll be bummed if I finish several minutes slower than I ran the course in 2010, but otherwise, I don’t really care what my time is.

Rather, my goal is just to get more fit as a result of doing this race. I would like to take the hills hard, and to not slack off on the flats. I would like to extend myself, to kick off training for the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend and the Philadelphia Half-Marathon on Nov. 16. So that’s my race plan—to not “race” the 10K, per se, but to treat it as a tempo run that I really have to push hard to finish.

My secondary goal is, of course, to have fun. It is my birthday, after all!