Run For Central Park

Yesterday was the Run for Central Park. It was a four mile race which started on the east side, crossed over at 102nd and went down to the 72nd street traverse on the west side.

Let me just say, it was the most organized race ever! It was the biggest NYRR race I've seen so far. When you sign up for a NYRR race, they always ask you for a PR for a mile. The mile must be within a race that is longer than a mile. For me, my PR came from my last NYRR race, and was 8:07. I didn't know this at the time I signed up, but they used this number to determine corrals. So I was a little intimidated to be in the third corral with all of the 8 minute milers. (But it was also kind of cool to be so far up front). I was also with my friend Jen, from Cincinnati. The night before, we had decided to run this one as a fun run, sticking together, talking the whole way, enjoying the scenery, and running around a 9 minute pace. We also decided to take it easy and leave our drinking/partying/going out for Saturday instead of Friday.

Stupidly, we didn't really follow this rule. We went out for Mexican the night before (why did we think this was a good idea?), and shared a pitcher of Red Sangria with my husband. We were having a great time and decided to go across the street to get something else from the wine store to continue on our sun deck. We were dead set on hard liquor (once again, why did we think this was a good idea?) and finished off several rum and cokes that night. Around mile 3, Jen attributed our feelings of having the worse race ever to what she affectionately dubbed this the "Mexican Pirate Trifecta" (Fish tacos, rum and insane heat/humidity). It was SO HOT.

It also didn't help that the clock on my first mile said 8:40. Since we were about a minute off of the pace clock, that means I took the first one out around a 7:40. This first mile was also on Cat Hill. No wonder I felt completely tired. The humidity absolutely killed me and make me feel like my legs were made of rocks. At mile three I just chalked it up to the worst race ever and just wanted to finish.

However, I cannot let myself give up at the end and for the final 50 feet or so I kicked it in. I have no idea how I did this because I really felt like I was going to die. I finished with a 36:36. That's a 9:09 pace. I have NO IDEA how we did that because I really did feel awful. :)

Oh yeah, I didn't feel THAT bad about my pace because a lot of the runners in the first corral (I'm guessing that they were faster than 7 minute mile pace) were also finishing around us.