I've done a few races (few 5Ks, 8M, 10M) now in my very young running career...most of them were planned such that I would start slow and pick it up at the end if there is enough gas left in the tank - a strategy suggested 99.9% of the time. So far it works great, helps me finish races well. But i often wandered if I could have done more...As an experiment I'm tempted to do the opposite in my upcoming 10K in 3 weeks. I'm gonna start strong the first half and see how i handle it in the second half, see if i crash and burn. Maybe the results will confirm the slow-start finish strong strategy as the one that works best for me. Is this a good or a bad idea ? Should I attempt this in a 5K instead ?

I think its worth a try once in a while, you may have a breakout race that way. If you think you've been too conservative in past its worth intentionally being too aggressive just to know what that feels like. Ultimately you want to find the "edge" that jeff talked about in his Tom King report. I generally call it the redline myself. In general, the way I try to race is to reach the redline about half, to a bit less than half way into the race. The "redline" is different for each race distance and takes practice to figure out what that is, but it's basically the hardest pace you can possibly sustain for remaining distance--you figure this out in training by paying attention to your breathing at different speeds and getting to know things like, "okay, when I'm breathing this hard I can maintain this pace for about 12 minutes" etc. I definitely run faster with the same percieved effort in races versus training so I would never race with a HRM--I think too much information can put limits on what you are willing to do. And what you are capable of is different from day to day sometimes hour to hour. The idea is to save just enough to be able to throw down some kind of kick and totally rempty the tank in the last half mile. Occasionally it all comes together and you have a break out performance. The bottom line is it takes practice and so I think what you're planning is a good idea, since this isn't a goal race.

Thanks for the input folks. Mikeymike,i guess that would be the goal, finding that 'edge' or 'redline', the racing gear .. one of the first steps that I've taken is to not run with the ipod and actually paying attention to the breathing and how it relates to pace and distance...initially this maybe why i'm slowing down a bit in the easy runs because i probably run faster with music, but i think this will help in the long run. I agree with you in the too much information probably does limit what I can and willing to do in a race. Derek, good luck with the 5K, definitely share the results...if there is a 5K coming up here i would definitely prefer to do it in a 5K rather than a 10K, but no such luck. Are you going to use your Garmin + HRM during the race ? I just ordered one yesterday it should get here before my race, i'll probably use it and not look at it during the race and just use perceived effort and have the data to compare later.

Just to add one thing to what's already been well said above. The best place to experiment with pain thresholds is the track. (Which is part of the reason I hate the track.) A seldom-mentioned benefit of 400's is that they are short enough to always finish at whatever pace, almost. I mean, they don't really start hurting until halfway around and then, well, the end is in sight. You can practice dying over and over again, but in short bursts. You can look at 800's the same way--not much pain the first lap, and then only one lap to go. It's easier, safer, better to try this in a 400 meter interval than in the last 6 miles of a marathon (of course, failing in a race is also, I'd argue, very important--at least then you are left with no doubts about your effort). I disagree with many of the principles of my high school training, which was low mileage and high intensity, but it was good for one thing for sure--learning how to deal with the pain of running hard. The most dangerous pain is the pain we imagine we are going to feel because it's this imagined pain, not the actual pain of running, that keeps us from running to our best. The best way not to fear imagined pain is to confront it, actually. To die in a workout but keep pushing. You might find that it didn't hurt as bad as you thought it would. Or, you might see God. Either way, good stuff.