Tomorrow, most of my triathlon team mates, will be joining me to run individual 10K time trials, as part of a team ‘virtual race’.

It’s always interesting to think about how to approach a race.  How do I pace myself?  Start slowly and build?  Go out fast and hang on? 

It is most commonly believed that a slight ‘negative split’, is typically the way to achieve your fastest result.  I think that is probably correct, but how do you know, what the best pace is for the first half of the race?  If you pace it too slow, then you can easily negative split, but you may not have run your fastest possible time.

The bottom line is you never really know.  You just have to try.  So for my 10K time trial tomorrow, my plan is to do a negative split, but I am going to try to do it all on “feel”.  My plan is to start the race at an effort, very slightly below where I feel I can run for the whole 10K, and then gradually increase from there. 

I am going to listen to my body, but try to be fully aware that my body will lie; your body can usually do more than you think it can.  I need to be mentally prepared to keep pushing, even if I think I need to quit.  I basically need to dig deep.

The other part of my plan, is to not know at what pace, I am actually running.  Your mind can be a limiter, especially if you look at your watch and see a pace that you think is too fast.  To ensure I don’t accidentally look at my watch during the ‘race’, I have decided to cover the face with duct tape. Hopefully, I resist the urge to rip it off and look while running.

I’m excited to see what I can do tomorrow.. and I won’t know, until I rip off that duct tape, at the end of the 10K.