Expectations for my 10K trail race

I'm three weeks away from my first 10K and I'm having some anxiety about how well I'll perform. I've run 6.2 miles and longer in recent months but that isn't a regular distance for me. Lately my runs have been shorter owing to weather (hot, sunny, humid), available time and tough trail conditions. My Friday city run was exhausting and not quite five miles. I'll admit that I sabotaged myself by running on an empty stomach and ran out of energy near the end. Perhaps with more nourishment I would have been able to go all the way to South Ferry as originally planned but I'll never know. Saturday was a relatively fast run over 3.8 miles so I understand I traded distance for pace. Yesterday's four mile run in the heat and humidity had similar conditions to Friday's, the difference being I had a carb-rich breakfast an hour before I ran so I couldn't blame a lack of food on my performance.

The heat seems to affect me more than any other factor and the Dirty Sock 10K is due to start at 8:00 AM rain or shine. The combination of a a fairly early morning start, trail conditions that promise to be easier than Stillwell Woods ands the shade provided by the trees may just give me the boost I need to get through this race. In the meantime I'm going to concentrate on distance, perhaps running double my morning distance tomorrow and repeating that later in the week. I'm planning to meet another 10K participant on Saturday morning to run the 10K course. That will give me some familiarity and hopefully some confidence that I can perform credibly on race day.