Next Stop Syracuse

If it's the first weekend of October that means a road trip to Syracuse for the USATF Masters 5k Road Race championships.
We missed the debut in Syracuse in 08 as we made the trip to North Carolina for the XC Masters championships but having heard such great things about not just the race but the whole event we upped sticks and made the journey in 09 to witness first hand what our fellow masters 5k runners were raving about and have kept coming back ever since.

My debut in 09 was nothing to write home about much less blog about,62nd overall and 16th in the M45-49 age group in a slow 17.20 it was a kick in the teeth to waste such a pr course but I vowed to return the following year in race shape and set the record straight.....and did I ever!
12th overall,5th in my age group and a pr/club record time 16.00,I actually had 15.59 at the finish line but was rounded up to 16.00 which is still somewhat of a bone of contention w/ me.

So what do I think I can do this year? a simple question but one I just don't have a simple answer for,like last week I find myself in a race I haven't catered my recent training towards,to go sub 16 I need to be in 5.05 pace and I'm not 100% sure I'm there yet,w/ the Bridge Run 10k now just 5 weeks away the desire to average 5.20 pace is more where my recent hard 8 milers and 3x2mile repeats have been so it's a dilemma as to which race tactic to adopt, go out reasonably hard early on and hope my return to the realm of 50 miles per week{this will be my 7th week of 50mpw} is enough to see me through the second half of the race or run a smart semi conservative race and see where it stacks up in terms of 10k pace?
I do have another 5k race albeit a xc 5k on my race schedule in 3 weeks time so there's some "wiggle room" if I adopt an all out attack on trying to avenge last years "rounding up"hopefully come gun time at 8.50am on Sunday I'll have decided which side of the fence I'm on.