2019 GIVE N' GOBBLE RACE PREVIEW

Course has not changed since my first time in 2013.

Well, I never got around to doing a reflections post about the Portland Marathon. My bad. Maybe I'll do a post about that in the upcoming winter lull. Maybe not. Anyways, after the Portland Marathon I took an entire week off and then ran sparingly the next two weeks. I wanted to give my body more time to recover than I did last year. Did it work? Eh. It still took probably a month before my legs even felt like they might be back to their normal "spring."

Regardless, I have been back running regularly for a few weeks now. Two weekday runs of at least four miles and then ten on the weekends. The usual off season stuff. My goal this year is to do at least one speed run during those weekday runs. Last winter all I did was easy runs and I feel like I lost a lot of speed. So I'm going to try to slow down the speed loss this year. In addition to speedwork, a good way to keep up your speed is doing races. And in that spirit, I will once again be doing the Give n' Gobble 10k in Sherwood this Thanksgiving. I also did it back in 2013 and 2017.

Am I ready for a 10k? Sure, why not. I don't think I'll be particularly fast. In fact, I think I'm going to be slower than the Bridge to Brews 10k earlier this year (7:59/mi). This course is tough... very hilly and very little flat ground. It never really allows you to "settle" into a nice 10k pace, you're either huffing up a hill, or trying to catch your breath on the way back down. A good comparison will be my performance in 2017 when I ran it at 8:24/mile. My legs were definitely fresher back then, but I should be faster now. I'm expecting something in between that pace an the Bridge to Brews pace.

My plan is to not stare at my watch and just go with what feels right for a 10k. On a flat course, I think that would be something like 7:50/mi. However, on this course, I think it will be in the low 8s. We'll see on race day. My legs don't feel super fresh; again it has been a slog back from the marathon, although better this year than last year. We'll see what happens. I'll have to make sure to take advantage of the downhills while I can, although that can be hard on this course. Most the ups and downs aren't sustained for very long, so by the time you have caught your breath on the downhill it goes back up again.

Anyways, it will still be fun to get out there and run a race and see what happens. We can do some apples to apples comparisons between 2013 (7:14/mi!) and 2017. Whatever pace I get, I think you can subtract about 15 seconds a mile and that would be my "flat" 10k pace. The weather looks good so it'll fun to just get out there and race something shorter. Then, a mere ten days later, I will be lining up for the Holiday Half again. So it'll be a busy two weeks of races and then probably nothing until the Miami Half Marathon in early February.