NYRR Henry Isola Cross Country 4M 2015

Since my birthday fell out on a Sunday this year, I was determined to do a race on that day.  I actually wanted to do a half marathon, but the closest one was in New Paltz.  Wake up at 3 AM to drive several hours, as well as pay $125 for the privilege?  No thank you.

This race wasn’t exactly close by (it’s at least an hour and a half by subway to Van Cortlandt Park), but I can read on the train, and the 11:30 start meant I didn’t have to wake up before dawn even thought of cracking.

Though I did get up pretty early.  Because the online registration spots filled up the day before I planned to register, and I had to do it at the event instead.  I would have been very, very angry if I got there too late!

I’ve done the VCTC UEC 10K in Van Cortlandt Park three times; that’s about the extend of my trail racing experience.  Since my primary concern on trails is to avoid falling and breaking something, I tend to just not care about my pace as much, which leads me to walk.  A lot.  This never mattered to me before, but my slowest pace in an NYRR race to date was 8:51; I did not want a 9:xx in there to mess it up.  Since I ran the 10K in April at a 9:07 pace, with quite a bit of walking thrown in, I figured I’d pretty much have my desired pace taken care of if I just didn’t walk.  Goal: finish under 36:00.

Yeah… we got to run up Cemetery Hill twice (double loop course).  Honestly, I had no idea which hill was Cemetery Hill; I just know it has a reputation for being a killer!

We started on the flats, and stayed there for nearly three quarters of a mile.  I probably went out too fast, but this is a case in which I don’t mind banking time; I know the trails are going to slow me down anyway, no matter what I do before we hit them!  It was also really freaking hot and sunny, so it was somewhat of a relief to get into the shade.

Cemetery Hill was in the second mile.  It was pretty awful.  I didn’t walk, but it’s nearly a 15% grade at its steepest — I was running so slowly, I might as well have been walking!

And then, immediately following that is a steep downhill… -25% in spots (so says Strava).  Nothing makes me fear for my bones more than careening downhill and feeling completely out of control, so I actually tend to slow down on those.

I passed a few people on the trails during the first loop, but by the time I got back to the flats for the second loop, it had pretty much thinned out.  (I know.  In an NYRR race.  Unbelievable.)  When I passed the finish line clock, I think it read something like 16:10 — so I was well ahead of my target.  No need to sprint like a crazy person until we get back to the trails, then.

Cemetery Hill was even worse the second time.  I will confess that I did walk a bit here… I’m not sure for how long, but it was probably a little under a minute, until I got to the top of the hill and started to fly down the other side.

Back on the flats, we were running on a cinder path, which means it’s easy to hear people coming up behind you.  I knew I was going to beat my goal, so I wasn’t worried about that, but I didn’t want to turn around to see whether the person I heard was a female in my AG; that’s probably the only reason I didn’t coast in to the finish.  (Turns out it was a man.)

GPS is useless on trails, so I don’t even know what I’m supposed to make of these splits.  Nothing, I suppose.

But!  This is a surprise, because it never, ever, ever happens to me in NYRR races.  I mean, cross country races are different — much smaller field, and no timing mat at the start, so if you’re positioned well from the gun, you have a decent shot at it:

I placed second in my AG.  Happy birthday to me!

Garmin stats: 3.89 miles in 32:26, 8:21/mi.

Official results: 4 miles in 32:25, 8:07/mi; 70/252 OA, 12/107 F, and 2/18 F30-34.

I will admit that I’m a little annoyed with myself because had I not walked during that second climb up Cemetery Hill, my average pace probably would have been under 8:00.  But oh well… there’s always next time?

If I decide to do this again.  Because right now, I’m still busy wondering what the hell I was thinking in registering for a trail half!  (But it must be said that my “cool down” run to 72nd St. was harder than the race.  The Washington Heights and Morningside Heights thing should have been a clue.  Hey, I should train for Jerusalem there!)

NYRR almost got me

Shore Road Summer Series 10K 2015

After running six 5Ks this summer and doing fairly well in all of them — even those run in pretty unbearable weather conditions — I gave the 10K another shot.

Semi-spoiler: I still hate 10Ks.  Maybe even more than I did before.

Supposedly, I can run 10K at a 7:08 pace.  Wanting to err on the side of caution, as always, I decided to shoot for 7:15 or so.  The course is flat; provided there isn’t a strong wind, it’s not so hard to settle into a  pace and stick with it.

Because the R train sucks, I ran the 6.5 miles to the start.  I was coming off my first 50-mile week in ages, so I felt a little beat up.  Okay, I felt completely crappy.  But I tried to console myself with the thought that there have been plenty of times when I felt horrible during a warm-up and still managed to run a decent race.

Not ideal, but definitely better than it could have been.  I’m also glad I didn’t pay attention to the forecast that said it would be cloudy and leave behind my sunglasses, because running in the full sun (no shade on the course at all) without them would not have been very enjoyable.

I ran this race in 2013; don’t ask me how, since as soon as I finished I was unable to walk without a severe limp because my knee hurt so badly.  Imagine my horror, then, when as soon as the race began, my ITB squawked.  Loudly.  I really don’t need a repeat of that!

It did quiet down.  Kinda.  I settled into my chosen pace pretty easily, and was happy to see that it didn’t feel as deathly as I’d feared.  I started relatively close to the front, and a couple of females passed me almost immediately, so I knew I probably wasn’t going to be contending for top three this year.

There was a little headwind during the second mile, which I didn’t mind too much.  The course is out-and-back, so any headwind now should translate into a tailwind later.  (Key word: should.)  Some random spectator running in the opposite direction gave me a big goofy grin and a thumbs up and said, “First lady!”

Which was aggravating, because I knew for a fact that it wasn’t true.  It took me a minute to realize that he had a heavy accent, and what I heard as “first” might actually have been “fourth.”  The thought supplied sufficient motivation for me to overtake the woman directly ahead (to be fair, she had started coming back to me anyway), even though I was apparently slowing down here because 10Ks suck and I can’t believe I’m doing this to myself.

That was a bit before the three-mile mark, so I could already see the runners ahead of me on their way back.  I counted the women, and I only saw two.

Back to that whole “headwind now means tailwind later” thing.  Yeah, doesn’t work that way.  The last two miles were difficult.  I’d worry that I’m just making excuses for doing a crappy pacing job, but a few other runners who finished around the same time said they felt the same way, so I guess it wasn’t only me.  Still, it ticks me off.

If I had managed to keep my pace around 7:19, I would have been okay with it, even though that’s still slower than my goal.  I just don’t like the way it looks like I completely fell apart at the end there.  (Well, that last quarter mile doesn’t show it.  I was determined to overtake the guy who had been tantalizingly out of reach for the last mile.  I did.)

Notice anything amiss?  Yep, apparently I can’t count, because the fourth place specialist strikes again.  (It’s a small consolation that the woman I passed midway was in my AG.)  I ran two minutes (and one second) faster than in 2013, and moved back a place.  Lovely.

Per my Garmin: 6.25 miles in 46:18, 7:24/mi.

Officially: 6.2 miles in 46:15, 7:28/mi.  27/221 OA, 4/108 F, 1/36 F30-39.

Had you told me a couple of years ago that I’d run a 10K in 46 minutes and not be thrilled to bits about it, I would have thought you were insane.  I still think it’s insane, because I’m unhappy with a race when I PRed by almost two minutes.  (1:47, I believe.)

Now I’m going to have to take another couple of shots at this, because I will get it right, dammit!!  On that note, there’s no point in playing the McMillan Prediction Game, since this performance was under par.

There was a finish line video, too.  Talk about horrifying.

Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series #7

This was the last Al Goldstein race of 2015.  I felt like it would either go out with a bang, or with a feeble little whimper… and I was leaning towards the latter, since I slept like total crap the night before and — surprise! — my digestive system was having a very unhappy day.

The sun was shining when I left the house, so I wore sunglasses.  Before I reached the end of my street, a few fat raindrops had begun to fall.  They were weird raindrops, too — somehow they were hitting my eyelashes.  Which were behind lenses.  It proceeded to rain for the next fifteen minutes or so.  My run to Lakeside took a bit longer than sixteen minutes.  The rain stopped then, but I was already wearing wet clothes, so thanks for nothing!

The sun couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether it wanted to stay behind the clouds or show its face, but I decided not to wear my sunglasses for the race.  I rarely do this (unless it’s actually raining).  But, you know, saving myself those few grams might yield a couple of seconds…

…because even though I’ve achieved my sub-21:40 goal this summer, I’m just not wired to take it easy.  Ergo, I was now aiming for 21:38 or faster.  And I wanted to run every mile in under 7:00.  Ben had run earlier that afternoon, so he wasn’t going to race this, which meant I could chase him without dropping dead.  Except that then Tifenn stole him to be her pacer, which meant I’d have to do this on my own.  (Again.  Yeah.  What else is new?!)

But I didn’t!  Antonia was standing right next to me at the start line, and she wasn’t planning to PR either.  In the past three Al Goldstein races, I’ve placed one spot behind her in our AG; I always pass her on Zoo Hill, and then a couple of miles later she passes me and there is no hope in hell of me catching her again.  She is better than I am about being patient going up the hill.  So I was just going to follow her lead and not look at my watch, since she’s obviously done a better job of this than I have!

Such beautiful racing weather!  Actually, the temperature was the same at the R-U-N 5K; it was just a little more humid and windy now (with a few scattered raindrops).  But overall, not too bad.  Without the stifling humidity, I am definitely a warm-weather runner.

There was a little bit of a logjam at the start (kids), so it took some zigging and zagging at first, but I pretty much stayed right behind Antonia.  I wouldn’t say it felt easy, but since I usually zoom past her up the hill, it felt easier than it normally would.  Once we crested the top of the hill, she told me she was going to pick up the pace.  She was ahead of me, but not too far ahead.  Even though I wasn’t looking at my watch, someone was calling out splits at the first mile marker, and I passed him right around 6:45.  Which is faster than I’ve ever run the first mile before, but I think the difference here was that I took it relatively easy up the hill and then sped up, whereas if left to my own devices I’d speed up the hill and then be forced to slow down afterward.  (And the weather didn’t hurt.)

Mile two wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  It helps that it’s the most downhill section of the course.  It’s usually toward the end of this mile, in fact, that Antonia passes me.  She was already ahead of me here, but I could still see her — I figured there were about fifteen seconds between us.

I lost sight of her a little after the second mile mark.  And that is when I committed what was probably a mistake and looked at my watch.  See, normally, around the midway point of the race, I begin to pray for a quick and immediate death.  Because I didn’t kill myself on the hill this time, I got an extra half mile or so before that started to happen.  At which point I looked at my watch and realized that even if I slowed down significantly, I would still be able to PR.  I don’t know whether that slowdown would have happened anyway, or if I did it consciously — but I really should not have looked.

Kristen was at the three mile mark; I think she was calling splits, because unless I was hallucinating (entirely possible), I heard “20:56” when I passed her.  A few seconds later, I caught sight of the clock; I knew I was going to PR, but I sprinted anyway.  (Evidently when I miss a PR, it doesn’t matter by how much; but if I’m going to get a PR, I want to squeak out every last second I can.)

I don’t even know where that came from.  I really have no idea.  And the Fourth Place Specialist strikes again!   Antonia was third.  She finished 28 seconds ahead of me.  I am not at all upset about placing fourth — I’d take a PR over an AG award any day.  And she was a great pacer, so I can hardly begrudge her that!

According to my Garmin, 3.13 miles in 21:22, 6:50/mi.  And I did run every  mile under 7:00 — barely.  But I did.

Officially, 3.1 miles in 21:21, 6:53/mi.  87/324 OA, 16/133 F, and 4/35 F30-34.  Of course, I immediately think, Now I have to go after 21:20, but I do quite like the look of 21:21.  It’s so… uniform.

McMillan predictions!  These get more and more hilarious.  (Hey, I should go back to the predictions I thought were so funny a couple of months ago and see if I still feel that way!  Actually, the truly hilarious part is that according to this calculator, my easy run pace starts at 7:57.  Sure.  On some other planet, maybe, but not on mine.)

1mi — 6:09.0
4mi — 27:45 (6:56/mi)
5mi — 35:24 (7:05/mi)
10K — 44:20 (7:08/mi)
15K — 1:08:42 (7:22/mi)
10mi — 1:14:07 (7:25/mi)
HM — 1:38:51 (7:33/mi)
FM — 3:28:02 (7:56/mi)

I guess I can say that the Al Goldstein Speed Series went out with a bang!  I’ve run six 5Ks this summer, and I PRed five of them — my PR was 22:43 at the beginning, and it’s 21:21 now.  I was just thinking about this summer in comparison with that of 2012 (when I fractured my hip and pelvis in June), and it’s amazing how different they are.  Sure, I feel like a big fat heffalump now (unverifiable as fact since I refuse to weigh myself), but you can’t argue with results, and this, right here?  This is why I chose to get fat and keep running over being skinny.

When it works, it’s worth every pound.

NYRR R-U-N 5K

I’ve long yearned for NYRR to add some 5Ks to the schedule.  My wish was granted with this one.  An evening race would have worried me last year — but the Al Goldstein races have proven that it’s not the disaster I always feared.

NYRR has come up with a newfangled corral / pace system of which I am not a fan — they are going to convert best paces to 10K equivalents now.  This meant that I had to run under 21:40 at this race so that I could enjoy having a NYRR pace under 7:00 for half a second.

It was also my last chance at a blue bib (first corral), because instead of a color coded system, they’re going to be using letters.  “An A bib” doesn’t seem quite as appealing, for some reason.

My bib was red (second corral).  I’m not sure what the cutoff pace was, but I do know that it was less than ten seconds away from mine, which made me very sad indeed.

But!  Onward.  The subway cooperated for once — I caught an F train just as I entered the station, and there was a B pulling in across the platform when I got off to transfer at 34th St.  It took me less than ten minutes to get to Central Park.  Of course, I couldn’t really read the book I had with me because… well… nerves.  You know.  I was especially anxious since my pelvis (yeah, that thing I’ve fractured more than half a dozen times) has been scaring me for the past few days — it started bugging me on Tuesday, when it was raining, which makes sense.  But that messes with my head, so who even knows what I really feel now…

After killing some time doing heaven-only-knows-what, I found Dahlia and we eventually ran down to the start (about half a mile from Race Day Central).  I kept going down to 75th St to get in some more distance.

This is the course map — about as friendly as Central Park can be!  It starts after the West Side Hills, which always kill me, so I don’t have to contend with those.  Cat Hill is around the halfway point, which is probably the worst place it could be, but it really isn’t that bad.

It’s pretty much all downhill.

And compared with my last 5K… the weather was amazing.

It was hot, but not too terribly humid!  More than 37%, I think (I was a bit drippy after my warmup), but it wasn’t so bad that it really interfered with my ability to breathe.

Dahlia and I lined up right at the front of the second corral, so we got to see how the first corral was overflowing.  Come on — you couldn’t stuff a few more people in there so I could have my blue bib?!  Hmph.  While we were squashed and waiting, I saw Gary (squashed into the first corral), who told me he’d see me when I passed him after half a mile.  Ha!

It looks like I went out way too fast, but I really don’t think I did; the first mile is just so downhill that it really can’t be helped!  I kept thinking that I was running too fast and I should slow down, but it did not feel like a 6:41 effort.  (Fun fact: it’s faster than my official mile PR.)  And Gary lied — I passed him around .7 mile in.  I was even able to toss him a cheery greeting, which just goes to show that it didn’t take so much effort to run a fast first mile.  Plus, this is the last mile of the 4M races, so I associate it with throwing in everything I have left.

It didn’t last, of course.  Cat Hill is the first mile of the 4M courses, so it’s generally too congested to run it as fast as possible anyway; that probably makes it seem easier.  But it wasn’t too badly crowded here (per NYRR race standards anyway), and can I just say… it hurt.  A whole hell of a lot.

So did the last mile, which is usually my fastest one in a 4M race.  Sometime after mile 1, I had figured that if I ran 7:10 for the next two miles, I’d end up with three miles in 21:00, at which point I would probably be able to run the last .1 in under 40 seconds.  That might be the only reason I didn’t just curl up in a ball and cry.

That final .1 lasted forever.  It took me a second to locate the stop button on my watch after I crossed the finish, and I almost fainted when I saw what it said.  Since I start my watch before the first mat and stop it after the last one, my official time is usually a couple of seconds faster.  And I thought I’d end up running 3.15 miles, so I looked it up beforehand — 3.15 miles in under 21:40 would require a 6:53/mi pace.  This was a bit too close for comfort.

They were handing out ice pops after the race in lieu of the usual fruit.  It made me very sad that they weren’t kosher.  Story of my life.  And it was fine while I was running, but my pelvis felt pretty unhappy after I stopped… which is why I didn’t do a cool down run with Ben after the race.  Double boo.

I was in a rush to get back to my phone in bag check to see my unofficial time!

Ahhhhhhh!!!  I couldn’t get too excited, though — at the Bronx 10 Mile last year, my unofficial time was 1:21:59; my official time was 1:22:00.  I don’t understand how that even happens, but if it happened again, I really was going to cry.

I didn’t have to cry!  My official time was 21:39, 6:58/mi.  444/5099 OA, 61/2843 F, and 18/702 F30-34.  It’s also 68.43 AG%, which is my highest ever, so that’s nice.  And a two-second PR!

But I didn’t even get to enjoy my new sub-7:00 pace for a day, because MyNYRR has already been updated to reflect the 10K pace… 7:16.  Which is faster than my old best pace by a grand total of three seconds.  Because I am a bored soul, I went and figured out what I’d have to do to get back to a sub-7:00 pace… I would need the equivalent of a 43:24 10K.  That’s a 20:54 5K (6:44) or 27:10 4M (6:47).  Yeah… that’s not happening.  Not anytime soon.  Sad face!

McMillan predictions to make me laugh.

1mi — 6:14.2
4mi — 28:08 (7:02/mi)
5mi — 35:54 (7:11/mi)
10K — 44:58 (7:14/mi)
15K — 1:09:40 (7:28/mi)
10mi — 1:15:09 (7:31/mi)
HM — 1:40:14 (7:39/mi)
FM — 3:30:57 (8:03/mi)

Yuk yuk yuk!