More careful closer to race?

Absolutely. Something I'll run through mid-build is very different than one or two weeks out. The difference in good pain (hard training) and bad pain (something not quite right) is something I'm way more sensitive to closer to a race.

And i definitely pull the throttle back, rest, stop - whatever it takes close to a big race. If it's a C race, less so. But for one I care about? Definitely.

Matt

Definitely. Pain/tightness/aches, especially "abnormal" ones become injuries, and injuries take time to recover from. If I get the sense that something is off I'll cut a workout short any time of the year. If I'm months away from a race, I can afford to push through a little and see if it resolves itself (frequently they do), and if I end up aggravating something it's not a huge deal to take a few days, a week, 2 weeks etc. off to recover. But getting an injury too close to a race sucks - hard to maintain that sense of peak fitness when you haven't been training, and the odds of pain/injury affecting your race increase significantly.

I think you made the right call cutting your run short. You're not building fitness this close to your race, so you have much more to lose than to gain.

Yes. Even when I am feeling perfectly fine I am much more cautious just in general. For instance the potential of miss-stepping while I am running and possibly rolling an ankle. And I am more paranoid about sick coworkers, etc. The last two weeks before a race are NERVEWRACKING!