phase one complete

I have three self-imposed tests of increasing difficulty that I use to judge fitness, and I passed the first one last night: Running five miles solo at a sub-5:45 pace. Officially it was 8.4K in 29:41.6 which is slightly over 5:42 per mile. The second test is to do the same for a full 10K (so anything under 35:39) and the third is breaking 35:00 for 10K. I don't remember where I came up with these tests and it's all terribly arbitrary but they just seem to work. I feel like I'm race-ready when I can run a sub-35 without competition. Doing it outside of a race matters; the magic race day adrenaline boost is cheating. Or it would be cheating, if it happened on a flat and accurately measured course. But I'm not sure such a thing exists in eastern MA.