Thanksgiving Turkey Trot

Busy week. Monday night we went to see Interpol at Terminal 5.

So didn't get to bed until late. Tuesday I had my 2nd week of speed sessions, 8 x 400m which I actually kind of enjoyed although it was really warm inside so I definitely need to go back to storage and take some shorter shorts out.
We were really busy with customer orders at work due to the various sales going on at the moment too.

Thursday was the start of Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if it just used to be Thursday but now includes Black Friday shopping, Thanksgiving weekend and then your Cyber Monday online shopping day!

I entered what will be my last race of 2014, the Prospect Park Track Club's annual Turkey Trot. A 5M trot of a lap and a half of Prospect Park.
A good price, a nearby start but really more so I could eat all the food later without feeling quite so guilty.

Can you guess what the race give-away was?

Weather was a windless couple of degrees and the start was at 9am so I tried to time it and jogged over around 8.40am. The start was actually a little further over through the Center Drive road than I thought so I ended up arriving at 8.57am and as they were starting in the direction I was entering from I stepped over the start line, turned around and 2 minutes later we were off!

The roadway is narrow so the other people turning up late had to wait to get past so they could start by crossing the timing chip mat.

I had a fast start, 6.12 then remembered that it was 5M's and not the 5K that I'm used to doing in this park.

 

So 6.39 along the bottom and then 6.55 including up the hill.
Once I crested the hill at Grand Army, I rolled up my sleeves, settled in to track a couple of other runners and did a 6.24 mile.

 Then with a strong finish I did another 6.12 through the line for a total time of 32.24, 32nd out of a decent field of 2279 and 3rd in my age group. A decent training session too when you add in the jog there and the jog home.

That made 22 races for the year which when I thought about it sounded a lot when you think that's a race every 2-3 weeks.
I'm also well over running 400 more miles than I did last year although I've only done half the amount of biking too!

Onto the food! Late afternoon we went round to Heather's cousins. They had a couple of friends round and everyone brought a couple of dishes round. Thanksgiving food is like our Christmas dinner so I had WAY too much food.

There was a spectacular ham, mushroom gratin, potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, mac n cheese, chicken adobo & rice. Then obviously dessert consisted of a little of everything; ice cream, ginger cookie, sweet potato/pumpkin pie, lemon bar and of course some apple pie.
Haven't been so full for a long time.

I had to work Friday morning but luckily I am down in shipping so had minimal contact with the tonnes of customers that were swarming all over the store on Black Friday, I mean it's not like we sell tv's!

Cross Country in the sun

Yesterday I did the Pete McArdle 15K Cross Country up in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.

When I got up I looked out our rear window and found there were three parrots sitting in the trees!

As we practically back onto Greenwood cemetery I presumed they were the ones that nestle above the main entrance to the Cemetery. When we did the tour back in April we were told all about them.

Although it takes around 1 hour 45mins to get there the later start time (11.30am) and the nice quiet green surroundings definitely make it worth heading up there for races.
Plus it was only $15 and amazingly the weather was shorts and t-shirt weather with no need for arm warmers or gloves, even while hanging about waiting for the start.

NYRR

I have done very little running since the marathon and this is my rest period before next year, ha ha but despite still having that lingering cough I thought I would have decent strength to get through a very tough 9.3M course.

NYRR

One mini 4 min loop then 3 roughly 5K loops including the hills and descents in the back wooded section. Three times, aaggghh! 600ft of ascent and descent in total.

NYRR

Lots of stone steps I guess to stop ground erosion but it means you constantly check your stride and do a lot of slamming down if you let yourself fly down the descents. Consequently my shins today are really really sore and tight.

I ran well though. Did roughly 19.45, 20.17 and 20.05 for the loops averaging a mighty 197 heart rate for the race.

1.04.38 for 31st place (321 finishers) and 6th in my age group.

Track night!

So I happened upon a link to some speed sessions when browsing the race calender on the NYC runs website. Taken by a coach from the local Prospect Park Track Club they hold a 10-week programme INDOORS at the local Park Slope Armory for the PPTC members.

I've peeked inside the door once when I passed by during the summer and heard all the kids camps running about screaming etc. It looked a very impressive facility.

So on Sunday I paid the $25 to join PPTC and then $50 for the sessions and went along tonight. I thought it would be a good way to keep going during the winter, it has already dropped down to zero degrees here. Plus I wanted to run on the indoor track, ha ha.

It is closer than the park to us, like a 4minute jog and has a 200m track. Although the place was quite busy (it is also one of the YMCA facilities) they seem to have fairly decent (read, strict) rules on where you can go (these bleachers only) and the lanes you use (4 & 5 only). Clockwise for warm up & down and regular counter clockwise for the workout!

Will be interesting to see how hard the sessions get but tonight's was a 20min jog warmup, some light stretching then 4 x 800m with 2min recovery.

I was a bit slow with my pacing on the first one but did just over 3mins for the rest and was consistent on those. There was a decent amount of people there and I was actually closer to the front mini group of 4 guys on the last one.

We'll see how sore I am tomorrow?! I came home with a tiny blister on one toe!

Back on the track for a workout for the first time in nearly 25 years.

Marathon madness

NYC Marathon weekend was fun... almost as fun as running one.

There was a big group over from Aberdeen, Friends of Hazlehead, running the marathon and thanks to Mel and Myles Edwards they had a little presentation when they had their pasta dinner the night before with Katherine Switzer and her husband Roger Robinson.
We kindly accepted the invite and both of us turned up just in time to hear Katherine speak. It was good and also nice to see Mel and Myles along with hearing a load of Aberdonian voices!

I gave Myles and a couple of the supporters directions to Brooklyn and met them just after mile 5 on the Sunday. As well as me trying (and failing) to spot the few people I knew running we were looking out for their runners and managed to spot, cheer and speak to around 10 or 12 of their group as they passed by.

Having two Scottish flags on our little Scots corner also meant we attracted the numerous other Scots in the field, along with a couple of shouts from English runners and one Irish guy who shouted "close enough". We also traded shouts of support, which was basically shouting the name of the country on their top mainly with the French and Swedish.

Elite women

Elite men

Due to the nature of the wave starts around mile 5 you see increasing numbers of runners coming then the main lot where it is nearly impossible to spot people unless you've really planned it out beforehand then it slows down a little as it nears the back of that wave then quickly fills out across the road as the next wave catches up and so on.

4th Avenue is one long long road and it looks pretty cool both for spectators and runners as you look up and down the road.

 As well as the few in fancy dress there was one guy juggling three little balls and this guy:

The weather was so different to our DC one the week previous.
I heard the wind was pretty strong particularly over all the bridges and after 4 hours standing there I helped put Myles and the others back on the subway to Central Park then jog/walked the mile or so back home before spending 30mins in the shower regaining feeling in my fingers.

Then tried to spot us on the tv replay: