Wednesday night I tried another new event. A once-a-month 5K race held away up on the East side around 110th street in Riverside Park. It was only $30 for the entire 4 race series, worth it even if I just manage a couple of them.
I finished work at 4.30pm, ate a bit of food, cleaned my bike, ha ha then headed up to the very top of Central Park West. I've never actually walked around this area before, it is really nice. Definitely have to come back to explore more.
So I got there in plenty time, couldn't really remember the course apart from it is was all within the park and had a loop back around to the finish so I had a little jog warm-up to see what it was like.
The guy on the bike out front informed the runners on the line that he would lead but would have to pull away a little on the big hill in order to stay in front of us. I was like what big hill??!
Once the race started I was already in the front 4 or 5 runners. The course was like one big running track shape with a flat front half and a rolling back half complete with incline to get up onto that level. At the far end you looped around a playpark and headed back up to do the top rolling section before dropping back down the big slope and having a nice straight sprint to the finish.
I kept steady in 4th place for most of the race and then really reeled in the 3rd place guy during the last mile, especially on the downhill then pulled in the 2nd place guy and finished on his shoulder with the exact same finish time.
Despite barely running for the last couple of weeks as I recovered from Bear Mountain, that training and last weeks 10K race, combined with cycling 42 miles this week as part of New York's Bike To Work Week I had a strong finish and came in at 19.21 / 6.15 pace... and won a mug. They gave out awards (leftover mugs from a previous race) to the age groupers and said where a lot of people were representing, clubs, etc. So when I went up for my award I said "representing Scotland" so the lady with the loudhailer told everyone "Representing Scotland. Let's have a round of applause for Scotland"... and they did, ha ha. By the time I waited for the awards, waited in line to get a burrito and took a couple of trains home it was time for bed. Ended up being a long day out, up at 6.30am and didn't get home until 10pm. I'll definitely be back to do more of the series although it won't be long before it's really warm and humid and nasty.
I finished work at 4.30pm, ate a bit of food, cleaned my bike, ha ha then headed up to the very top of Central Park West. I've never actually walked around this area before, it is really nice. Definitely have to come back to explore more.
So I got there in plenty time, couldn't really remember the course apart from it is was all within the park and had a loop back around to the finish so I had a little jog warm-up to see what it was like.
The guy on the bike out front informed the runners on the line that he would lead but would have to pull away a little on the big hill in order to stay in front of us. I was like what big hill??!
Once the race started I was already in the front 4 or 5 runners. The course was like one big running track shape with a flat front half and a rolling back half complete with incline to get up onto that level. At the far end you looped around a playpark and headed back up to do the top rolling section before dropping back down the big slope and having a nice straight sprint to the finish.
I kept steady in 4th place for most of the race and then really reeled in the 3rd place guy during the last mile, especially on the downhill then pulled in the 2nd place guy and finished on his shoulder with the exact same finish time.
Despite barely running for the last couple of weeks as I recovered from Bear Mountain, that training and last weeks 10K race, combined with cycling 42 miles this week as part of New York's Bike To Work Week I had a strong finish and came in at 19.21 / 6.15 pace... and won a mug. They gave out awards (leftover mugs from a previous race) to the age groupers and said where a lot of people were representing, clubs, etc. So when I went up for my award I said "representing Scotland" so the lady with the loudhailer told everyone "Representing Scotland. Let's have a round of applause for Scotland"... and they did, ha ha. By the time I waited for the awards, waited in line to get a burrito and took a couple of trains home it was time for bed. Ended up being a long day out, up at 6.30am and didn't get home until 10pm. I'll definitely be back to do more of the series although it won't be long before it's really warm and humid and nasty.
No comments:
Post a Comment