I was not supposed to be at this race.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I was supposed to be there, albeit as a volunteer. I signed up for that months ago because I wanted to keep myself from registering to run.
Over the past week, I found myself ruing that decision, since I remembered I had volunteered for this race last year and was absolutely miserable. I do not do well in the cold. It’s okay if I’m running because I’m generating some body heat, but just standing around? No. Plus, the odds of my being in the mood of going back out to run after freezing my ass off for six hours were not very high, so I’d have had to wake up at 3 AM to get in my own long run first. I was not happy, but I was going to do it.
Until I got an email with an entry fee discount. Okay, fine, twist my arm… I’ll run instead. This happened last Tuesday. Pretty much last-minute, but it’s not like I was looking for a spectacular time — I just needed to get the miles in. That, and if I have any hope of a PR at the Gridiron Classic next year, I really ought to spend some time running in Central Park. (I hate running in Central Park. Hills are not my friends. During races, anyway.)
I spent way too long scrutinizing this course map and trying to make sense of it. (It’s hard to see — I couldn’t capture the entire image on a computer, so it’s a screenshot from my phone. Didn’t help much either. There is a little green line going up the north end of the park. Yay, Harlem Hill!)
I actually did figure it out last night before the race — I was just confused re: where that little loop on the southern end of the park fit in. But it seems sort of obvious in retrospect! (Start on the east side, left onto 102nd St. Transverse, left to run south on the west side, left and left to go north on the east side, left on the 72nd St. Transverse to make that little loop, then another loop plus, ending on the 102nd St. Transverse. Duh.)
my version
Turned out to be pretty nice running weather — 39° at the start with a slight breeze. It was supposed to be sunny, and it didn’t feel too horribly cold, so I opted for sunglasses over a headband. (They don’t really work together since if I have something covering my ears, my sunglasses lose their perch. Cold sunny days are a problem!) It never did really get sunny during the race, which meant I got to look like an idiot wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day, but I suppose there are worse problems in life.
I intended to maintain an average pace around 8:30-8:45. But the best-laid plans…
One thing I do have to say: the mile markers were horribly off. It wasn’t just me, either — a lot of people around me were perplexed. I knew I went out too fast, and I tried to pull back a little bit, but I passed the first mile marker after 7:45. Which means my watch was way ahead of the marker. And that kept happening up until the sixth mile marker, when suddenly I was a tenth of a mile behind. Until the seventh mile marker, when I found myself far ahead again. It didn’t really matter much to me in the grand scheme of things since I wasn’t gunning for a PR, but someone who was might have gotten really messed up with those.
I hit the marker for mile 13 at 12.95 on my watch. And then I didn’t look what was happening on my wrist because I was busy dashing for the finish, but I was very surprised to see that my watch registered 13.16. I mean, I had realized midway through the race that I could come in under 1:50, even though — surprise! — my knee(s) was (were) hurting, but I kept having to adjust my expectations based on what I can only assume were wildly inaccurate markers. That was a bit frustrating.
Also frustrating: the fluid stations. I skipped all but two of them because of total logjams. Actually, I grabbed a cup at a third, but it turned out to be Gatorade. I hate when that happens. I wish there was some sort of uniformity to whether water or Gatorade comes first. (For some reason, I think it’s usually water. But I don’t know why I think that.)
The problem with the fluid stations was that the volunteers handing out the cups were standing flush up against the tables. If there are three volunteers, all of whom only have two hands, they can’t supply cups for a dozen runners. It would be ideal if they wouldn’t stand directly in front of the table, so that the runners who don’t manage to grab a cup from a volunteer can just pick one up on their own.
Those two grievances aside, it was a lovely event. I still hate running in Central Park, but it wasn’t so bad… and it’s nice to be able to run under 1:50 without throwing 100% of myself into it. (I fully admit that I ran faster than I should have. But is this really a surprise? If I’m not totally hobbled by pain and injury, that isn’t out of the norm.) Not to mention — long-sleeved tech shirts! That are gender specific! And not ridiculously enormous!
According to my Garmin, I ran 13.16 miles in 1:49:12, 8:18/mi.
Official results — 13.1 miles in 1:49:10, 8:20/mi… 266/1203 OA, 73/642 F, and 21/180 F30-39.
Other point of note: I hit 1500 miles for the year with the fourth mile of this race. That goal seemed a bit iffy and unreachable for a while when my knee was really giving me trouble, so I am inordinately pleased to have achieved it.
And I believe this brings me within one semi-decent half marathon of getting my average HM time under two hours. Yep, that’s including the Half Marathon of Doom. Because that’s the whole point — I’ve never run one over two hours except for that first one, and I don’t like to have it mucking everything up!
Running Break 