I hadn’t originally planned on racing in this event despite the significant desire to do so because I wasn’t successful at getting into it.\u00a0 But when my good friend John wound up having a work conflict that would prevent his participation, I jumped at the opportunity to race in his name.\u00a0 It’s a no-no but was well worth it for me.<\/p>\n
The course is what makes it so cool.\u00a0 Runners start in Central Park on the east side, run a full loop of the park in a clockwise direction, pass the starting line again, then run south again until they exit the park onto 7th Avenue south.\u00a0 The course then takes runners south to Times Square before turning right along 42nd Street.\u00a0 From there, runners run due west to the river before making a left onto the West Side Highway.\u00a0 Thereafter, it’s a straight shot south on the highway to Battery Park.\u00a0 Total distance:\u00a0 13.1 miles.<\/p>\n
Consistent with my bad luck, race morning met me with heat and humidity.\u00a0 I walked out of my apartment into some thick air and wondered immediately if this would be another epic battle.\u00a0 It was in its own way, but with much better results than in the past.<\/p>\n
Though there were something like 15,000+ runners there, I felt alone.\u00a0 For about 40 minutes, I sat in my designated start “corral”.\u00a0 When it was finally time to start, I prepped the iPod with a hard rock playlist, ate my final energy bar of the morning, and readied myself for an I-don’t-know-what-to-expect kind of day.<\/p>\n
I didn’t warm up before the race; I rarely do.\u00a0 These races are typically quite crowded in the beginning, so I just figure that my warmup would be running a bit slower with the crowd until openings allowed me to go a bit faster.\u00a0 After passing the starting line, I planned on running somewhat easy but when I came across the one mile marker, I saw that my time was 7:52.\u00a0 With an outside goal of running 8:01 or so per mile, which would net an overall time of 1:45:00, I was pretty excited.\u00a0 I thought, “That was an easy mile and I was 9 seconds ahead of my ideal pace.\u00a0 Nice!”\u00a0 It was short-lived.\u00a0 Mile two was 8:04, and mile three was 8:09.\u00a0 Immediately, I gave up… mentally, that is.\u00a0 I thought, “Oh well, I guess I’ll just run and not push the pace.\u00a0 There’s no point.\u00a0 I’ll be tired in the latter miles and I’m already missing my goal pace, it’s over.” What a defeatist and how contrary to my nature, but heat\/humidity is my nemesis and plays games with me.<\/p>\n
So, I relaxed, took my time, ran with a general pack of runners, and tried to enjoy myself.\u00a0 But, at around the 5 mile mark, I saw that my pace had actually averaged my goal pace.\u00a0 I was instantly buoyed, and immediately picked up the pace!\u00a0 I felt great and pushed hard until the 8.5 mile mark.\u00a0 At that point, I stopped to drink water and walk for about 25 seconds.\u00a0 It wasn’t my ideal strategy, but after a hard effort for a good 30 minutes, I was pretty beat and parched.\u00a0 I had gotten some water at each water station along the way, but managed only a small sip and chose instead to pour as much cold water over my head as I could.\u00a0 The heat was damaging me and I felt my core temperature was beginning to rise too much.<\/p>\n
After that brief respite, I felt energized and immediately ran a 7:50 mile.\u00a0 Eventually, after turning onto the West Side Highway, I settled into a fairly consistent but somewhat desperate pace.\u00a0 This distance is the farthest for me since Ironman Brazil, nearly 15 months ago, and with the heat, I new I was taking on a big challenge.\u00a0 The desperation I refer to here is relative to keeping an 8:00 or so pace with a high heart rate, high body temp, a searing sun, no wind, and a concrete surface that seemed to send the heat up.\u00a0 There were volunteers along the side of the road with hoses and whenever possible, I veered towards them and pointed at my head.\u00a0 Most were more than willing to spray me and that did provide some relief… but only for like 30 seconds at a clip.<\/p>\n
At the 12 mile marker, I was ready to call it a day effort-wise, but my mind wouldn’t let me.\u00a0 With only 1.1 miles to the finish, I figured I’d only have 9 minutes or so of running for the day, so I might as well push the pace hard since I knew I was close to getting a p.r.\u00a0 It worked great for the first half mile, but I began to notice my technique falling apart.\u00a0 The head was cocked to the side, I wasn’t necessarily running a straight line, I was panting noticeably, etc.\u00a0 Finally, with the finish line in sight, I put down an even harder effort and finished with my fastest mile split of the day.\u00a0 Phenomenal!<\/p>\n
In the end, I bested my time at a half-marathon by 47 seconds.\u00a0 It’s not a huge improvement perhaps, but was still a big deal for me since I was able to get this p.r. in such oppressive conditions.\u00a0 I must have looked like a crazy person with a cheeky smile as volunteers gave me cold towels and water, but I didn’t care.\u00a0 It felt great.\u00a0 I only wish that I had taken greater notice of Times Square and the West Side Highway as I ran, but I was so focused on my physical condition and my watch\/heart rate monitor.\u00a0 Oh well; I’ll try next year to pay better attention… if I get in.<\/p>\n
After getting cleaned up at home, I had brunch with my good friend Danielle who reported that many of the water stations ran out of water once the slower runners arrived.\u00a0 I’m so dismayed by this news.\u00a0 The NY Road Running Club is normally so impressive with their coordination, so it’s surprising to hear how they mismanaged the heat.\u00a0 I also heard a bunch of folks had to quit because they couldn’t hydrate.\u00a0 Terrible.\u00a0 I just hope no one got hurt\/sick.<\/p>\n
To make the day complete, I got to enjoy prosecco along the very same West Side Highway with a beautiful sunset and great company.\u00a0 What a way to close the day, with a celebration after a victory (albeit 11 hours later).\u00a0 So sweet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hadn’t originally planned on racing in this event despite the significant desire to do so because I wasn’t successful at getting into it.\u00a0 But when my good friend John wound up having a work conflict that would prevent his participation, I jumped at the opportunity to race in his name.\u00a0 It’s a no-no but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}