We're 10 days away from the Nike+ Human Race and I'm starting to think about my goals for the race. This is my first 10k, and even though I'll only be racing against the clock, it's nice to have something to shoot for.

First things first, sometime in the next 10 days I need to calibrate my Nike+, otherwise I'll have no hope of reaching my goal. In addition, I have to plot out my course. There are a lot of hills around here, and while I know I won't be able to avoid them entirely, I'd like to try and find something that's not all uphill (both ways...in the snow...with no shoes!!).

Ever since switching to Genny Light (which I'm now calling Genny "Light"-ning In A Can), my training runs have sped up. The last two, around 5 & 6 miles each, were run at around an 8:10/mile pace. I was pushing the pace during them, but I wasn't totally dead at the end so I think I can do better in "race" conditions. So my goal for the 10k is 50:00 or under, which works out to an 8:02/mile pace.

I'll admit, one reason I'm shooting for 50 minutes is 50 is a nice round number to hit, but the real truth is that I noticed on Viper's Booze Hounds Inc blog that 50 minutes was his 10k goal a few weeks back and I want to beat him! Sure, he drinks better beer than I do, but maybe, just maybe, I could beat him in a race to the beer store!