The Perfect Race

I am not sure what it means to run the perfect race. On Sunday October 20th I think I ran my smartest race possible. I did not run my fastest time and frankly I did not even seem to be racing at all. My plan going in was to stay relaxed and comfortable and test out how my body feels. Normally I fall into every trap imaginable on race day. I tend to go out to fast, race someone faster than me in the middle miles and wind up dying in the last few miles. This time was completely different. I went out and hit my first mile at 5% slower than my race pace and then slowly eased myself into a comfortably hard pace for the remaining miles. Here is what I need to work on.. At mile 11 I started to feel tired. My left hip started to get a small cramp. Easy enough to fix. My long runs were sporadic and I need to up my mileage a little bit. My plan for the next cycle is to run my easy runs at a faster pace than normal and slow my tempo and speed workouts down a bit. I feel that I have been racing my track workouts and just going too slow on my easy days.