Penn Relays week!

Today, I ran my last workout before Thursday night's Penn Relays 10k race.  The weather in Athens was warm and humid, but I didn't mind since the workout was short and sweet.  I've always been a fan of the final pre-race workout because it's almost always over before the normal workout pain arrives.

My free training advice of the day is this: if you're looking to gauge where your fitness level stands during your final pre-race workout, you're looking in the wrong place.  At this point in a runner's training the proverbial hay is in the barn.  Basically, nothing that I've done in the past week will have a major impact on my race - it's all more or less maintenance work.  If you're not ready for a race 10 days prior to the actual race, there is nothing in those last 10 days you can do to get yourself ready.  To put a spin on both the former Arizona Cardinal's head coach, Dennis Green, and the Zac Brown Band, you are who you are and you will get what you gave (in terms of the work you put into your training).

As for the race itself, the 10k field will be both competitive and large, with 65 guys on the track at once.  If I learned one thing from running in a big 10k race earlier this year at Stanford, it's that I've got to be a little more aggressive at the start to get myself in a more manageable position.  The race has a host of elite runners, including 12 guys who have run faster than 14:15 in the 5k (2 with PR's under 13:50), as well as the 7th place finisher at the 2008 US Marathon Olympic Trials, Nate Jenkins.  It will be a fast race, so we'll see how long I can hang on!

The race is Thursday night at 10:55 p.m. and you'll be able to watch it on the website (FloTrack) below:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/238230-2011-Penn-Relays

The next until you hear from me, I'll be in the city of brotherly love...until then, godspeed!