How to cram for a race in 10 days (or, This race is going to be ugly!)

Well, I have my big comeback race in 9 days.  And I can honestly say I am nowhere near ready for it.

Can I run the distance?  Sure. I mean, I did 7.5 miles on Sunday.  Slow miles, but 7.5 nonetheless.  No, my concern isn't the distance.  It's the tempo. 

As soon as I registered for the race, I did a track workout.  My intention was just to alternate faster laps with slower ones, but I felt so good that I ended up doing pseudo-400s instead.  Faster than I intended or expected, which is always a great surprise! 

The following week, I went back to the track for another workout -- the dreaded ladder.  It's my least favorite track workout, but it's a critical one because it gives you an idea of where your paces are AND forces you to run faster when you're more tired.  Due to time constraints, I cut one of the intervals out, the 1200 (which is by far my least favorite part of the least favorite workout, so you can see that I wasn't exactly crushed by the limited time, haha).  The workout went like this:

.6ish mile warmup jog to the track (yes, I live just over half a mile from a track!)
1600 in 7:55 (ummm, 7:55 pace)
800 in 3:45 (7:30 pace)
400 in 1:48 (7:15 pace)
2 x 200 in :48 and :46 (6:27 and 6:11 pace)
2 x 100 in :22 and :22 (5:55 pace)
.6ish mile cooldown jog home

At first, judging only by my watch, I was disappointed.  I used to do those 200s in 42 seconds!  And 100s in like 16 seconds.  And my fastest 400s (back in the day) were in the low 1:30 range.  Gawd, I SUCK.  And then I calculated the actual paces and realized that my times were pretty damn good for someone who is 1) coming back from a 4 month injury, and 2) older than dirt. 

Unfortunately, those 100s and 200s did a number on my glute.  It ached for the rest of the day and part of the next day, I'm sure due to the added force of landing hard and pushing off in addition to the longer stride I took during the sprints.  I dragged myself to yoga that night and to the pool the next morning, and that definitely helped.  I've been afraid to push the pace since then, however, and that's why I'm kind of dreading this race.  It won't be a race as much as a really expensive 3.1 miles with a couple hundred of my closest friends.  Ugh. 

I'm forcing myself to look at the bright side, however.  It's my first race in nearly 8 months and a great excuse to get decked out in Flyers gear for the first time all fall.  Speaking of which, this lockout simply must come to an end.  I am going through freaking withdrawal without hockey.