Brio Ice Cream 25k Strategy

This weekend will be a new experience for me- running a 25k race.  The Brio Ice Cream 25k starts at 5:30 Sunday morning.  Yep, they start races early in Hawaii!  We'll have about an hour before sunrise.  The forecast:

It was showing 80% chance of rain a couple days ago, so this is an improvement.  I actually don't mind running in the rain here, it has a nice cooling effect.  There are some lumpy hills and one mean one around mile 8.

I've really tossed around a lot of ideas in my head of how to treat this.  Is it a race or a long training run?  Should I try to race it or run easy?  I finally Googled "tune up race for marathon" and found over 180,000 results.  Many agreed than a half marathon four to eight weeks prior to the marathon is a good idea. Here are some of the tips I found:

From Runner's World:  No single workout better prepares us for a goal race than a tune-up race.  Regina Joyce considers tune-up races to be critical for marathon preparation. "They're basically your measuring stick," she says. "Are you getting stronger? Are you getting faster? Are you ready?"

From Active.com: Tune-ups are typically about half the distance of a target race—a 5K before a 10K, for example, or a half-marathon before a marathon. They let you test out your pacing, mental strategy, fueling, hydration, and gear in conditions that ideally simulate what you'll face in your goal event. You can use them early in your training cycle to gauge your fitness and fine-tune your workouts, or closer to your big day as a final dress rehearsal. Either way, you'll reap the benefits.

From Running Competitor:  When it comes to fitness gains, there is no substitute for a hard race effort.  Tune-up events are a great way to gauge fitness and preparedness. 

But this article from Strength Running helped me the most:  Tune-up races are, at their simplest, practice races. One of their primary benefits is to provide you with an indicator of your current fitness level so you can see if your training needs to be adjusted or if you’re on track to reach your Peak Race goal.

Your performance will be slower (maybe a lot slower!) than your best. Here’s why:

• There’s no taper before a tune-up race
• You haven’t done specific workouts geared toward the shorter distance
• You’ll probably feel more tired than usual; you’re “training through” the tune-up
• Since it’s not a Peak Race, you don’t have the race mindset.

A sub-optimal performance at a tune-up race can seem discouraging at first, but take it with a grain of salt for the above reasons.

So... my strategy?  I don't want to hold back and run at my LSD pace.  I want to know where I am, but I'm going to do my best not to freak out if I am slower, knowing that I have not tapered at all. With that in mind, I'm not going to set a time goal.  At this point, I think it might have a negative affect that I don't need bouncing around in my head. I really want to finish strong with little left in the tank.  I will have five weeks to recover and be ready for my marathon.  More than anything I do not want to bonk or get injured!

And then I'll eat ice cream.