Buda 30K Race Goals

It's always a scary moment when you sit down to figure out your race plan for an event. You check out your recent races, your training, the weather forecast, your horoscope, and combine all that information to come up with a set of goals for Race Day. I used the various run pace calculators, crunched the numbers from the previous Distance Challenge races, and I've arrived at these goals for tomorrow's 30k race:

• Minimum Goal: Course PR and overall PR of 2:51:12 (9:11 pace). I've done long training runs at this pace, so I'm pretty sure this should be comfortable.
• Realistic Goal: 2:46:37 (8:57 pace). This is the pace that matches my Freescale goal of 3:59:59, since the 30k is shorter. I feel good about this goal. As long as I don't go crazy early in the race, I should have plenty left to push to the finish for this one.
• Dream Goal: 2:45:00 (8:52 pace). This is a nice round number barrier, and this pace matches my best races in the Distance Challenge previously on the various charts. This would be an aggressive race, but maybe I'll be surprised tomorrow.

In addition, I'd like to finish this race strong for the first time. I hope to reach the half marathon mark fairly comfortably, and then duplicate my "fast finish" long training runs by picking up the pace over the last 5 miles. It would be tough to have a negative split in this race, given the tough finishing stretch, but who knows?

I'll treat the rest of the day as I will before Freescale, hydrating, and eating what I plan on eating before the marathon. It's an exciting thing to have this race before me, and now I just have to execute the plan.