Roosevelt Island 10K

As I've mentioned before, without having a car, a lot of things you do here such as entering races depends on the race location and how easy it is to get there especially for an early weekend start.

NYC Runs is an alternative local event organiser to the NYRR's and they had a 5K & 10K on Saturday morning on Roosevelt Island, this narrow strip in the East River between Manhattan and Queens.

The only subway stop there is 'our' F train and with the 10K starting at 9.30am I thought it would be easy to get to. Of course, the MTA's year-round weekend subway work is always a surprise when you look it up a couple of days before to find the F train stops around that area are not in use over the weekend. The other pedestrian way to get to the island is by tram! But timing that right and thinking there might be a long line of runners put me off that option.

In the end, my new fairly regular weekday schedule of getting up at 6.30am helped as I comfortably left the house at 7am and following the MTA website intended to take the F a couple of stops past Roosevelt Island, switch platform and come back the way, where it stopped on the island heading into Manhattan.
This worked fine, despite it running on the M line and not the C line like the website suggested and so the conductor told everyone to switch at another station, completely different to the website instructions but it actually worked out better for me. But you can see how every New Yorker hates the MTA and their communcations.

I got there super early (read that as on time) around 8.40am and had plenty time to scope out the island.

Coolest portaloo view ever

I had briefly visited once before to a friend of a friends house but not walked around outside anywhere. It has a strange feel, like a community all of its own. Albeit a community with a scary abandoned smallpox hospital at one end of the island that is.

Walked over to the water and got a couple of photos while I waited.

Tram!

59th St / Queensboro Brdge

There was a NYRR's 10K in Central Park at the same time, with 8000 runners and this combined with the location meant the field was going to be nice and small. I watched the 5K leave the start line at 9am and there was a little over 200 runners in that.

Then they informed us 10 minutes before the start of the 10K that because of the train situation the start was going to be delayed 15 minutes. So annoying, you could see it was going to be like that a few days before so I don't know why it was a surprise to people? You go somewhere here at the weekend, you check the trains!
In the end it was 20 minutes late in starting. Never a good thing because you've timed everything for a particular start time plus the cloudy start to the day was ending and turning into bright sunshine.

I looked around and there didn't look to be many runners lining up. When they called us forward to the line, I was reluctantly at the front, I've never done a race where nobody wanted to be right at the front. When the horn went, I was second only to a young guy in long shorts and wearing headphones. Something told me the fast pace he went off at wouldn't last. I felt really weird to be in second place for the first half mile although I could hear some guys behind me.

The course had a little stretch at the start near the bottom of the island where you rounded a cone before heading back for two laps of the island.

Despite following a race marshall wearing a fluorescent yellow tee riding a stand up elliptical bike and despite there being an additional marshall behind the turning cone the leader turned left, got shouted at and came back, then headed straight on to the dead end. As I rounded the cone and headed back people shouted at him and then he came sprinting past me. I could hear someone behind me say that's why you don't wear headphones in a race.

Around mile 1 I was joined by two other runners and I settled just behind them. A taller guy came past us and slowly pulled away from our mini group. The original leader was passed by us all never to be seen again.

I found it funny to be in a 10K race where it was just like watching a road race develop on tv. You have this little group of runners all feeling each other out. I'm used to either doing races where I'm maybe beside others or trying to catch others but amongst hundreds or thousands of runners. Or, like last week, just pretty much on my own.

One guy broke away for a few miles and me and the other guy paced each other side by side for 3-4 miles before we caught him just after mile 5. The path on the far side was quite narrow so I took to the grass and tried to go for a long sprint to the finish with around a mile to go. I thought I just have to beat one to be in the top 3, ha ha.

Once I hit the wider concrete path, you could see the finish up ahead so I kicked again if you can call it that, more of a strong finish rather than any actual sprinting. I was actually reeling in the leader but he was too far away. I came in second and immediately as I crossed the line and started walking I felt the urge to throw up. I did the throwing up motion twice, felt me mouth fill with saliva but then it stopped and I managed to feel normal again.
I think the heat, it was around 22 degrees for the last half of the race, the sprint for home (maximum heart rate of 209) and the accidental sip of gatorade instead of water with a mile to go contributed to that.

I chatted with the other three guys and the leader said he was totally waiting for us to breeze past at any moment. The guy I ran alongside for most of the race said it was good pacing and how he like the little events like this. Turned out to be only 136 finishers.

I was 13 secs behind the winner in 39:57, 3 secs ahead of 3rd place. It felt like it might be a little faster, but again my quads were a bit tight from the previous nights soccer. And the course was a little exposed to the wind down one side of the island. Although anything under 40mins is good enough for me though.

Ta-da!!

Then in a slightly tourist style I took the tram back over to Manhattan. You just use your regular Metrocard and it only takes 5 minutes, then a little walk to get the train home.

The Jason Bourne roof top jump on the back left ha ha

Rear window view

The NYRR 10K in Central Park had some elite runners due to the $25,000 cash prize on offer from the UAE sponsor and this produced an amazing winning time of 27:39, the top 10 all under 30 minutes! My time would've placed around 150th place, more ahead of me there than did the entire Roosevelt Island race, ha ha.

But choosing to run somewhere different had a nice day out feel to it and it gave me the experience of running a race right at the front AND I came home with a little glass plaque with a Mother's Day wonder woman on it!

Return to Bear Mountain

The North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon at Bear Mountain (what a mouthful) was my main goal for the first half of the year.
I had felt really strong in the last couple of weeks leading up to Sunday's race especially on easy runs but was unsure how close I would get to last year's 1hour 51mins (6th place) as I knew I ran hard and remembered that I had finished really strong last May.

Again, we hired a car for the day and set off at 5am. A little bit delayed as we had to navigate some road closures due to Sunday also being the 5 Borough Bike Ride where thousands of cyclists get to ride on closed roads. Luckily we were off before they got going.
The weather forecast was dry and overcast but with the threat of rain later on that afternoon. In the end it was perfect, slightly cool at the 8am start but with the sun breaking out towards the end. It was actually the hardcore rain we had two days before (apparently Wednesday was the 10th wettest April day ever in Manhattan) that changed the course... for the better.

This was bone dry last year!

On the very first climb into the woods within half a mile we encountered a big pile of mud across the path and then a slightly rocky uphill patch that had water streaming down it. I realised it was going to be a lot wetter than before and immediately I assumed I was going to be slower because of that.

fresh and clean

I went off quite fast and thought there must've have been about 10 people up ahead and then like last year within 3 miles it settled down to where I ended up following the same guy for the next 7 miles with nobody really behind me. The other difference from last year was that around the 3 mile mark I decided to stop at the side for a pee! It had bothered me since about 400m into the race, I could've carried on but it was bugging me mentally, ha ha. You think a lot about different stuff during a half marathon. That guy passed me while I stopped and it took me the next 7 miles to finally catch him and pass him. And just like last year, it kept me going trying to keep him in sight so I didn't have to try so hard to spot the course markings.

I didn't think I'd really remember the course but occasionally I'd remember bits as I got to them, I knew there was a long-ish climb after the 9M feed station and although there are no miles markers, when I did pass one saying 11M I knew that was incorrect based on how long I'd been running for, more like 10M!

There were a few tiny stream crossings, plenty of mud patches and a lot of running water on the rocky downhill stretches. In the last couple of miles you meet up with the 10K race runners and I looked forward to this as I knew I'd get that same boost as last year plus knowing it was the home stretch meant I felt I was flying! I seen the photographer positioned right after a mud bath and as I stormed through it I hoped he'd get some good photos of me, and he did!

splish

splash

dash

I hadn't really looked at my watch for a while, just in case I tripped! I only really looked at a handful of times, just to get an idea of where the water stop would be as I planned to take a gel and then just to know there was 20 odd minutes left to go.

300m from the finish!

I came into the finish, crossed the line and then was extremely pleased to see that I'd crushed last year's time by over 2 minutes, 1 hour 48min 52secs.

They have timing mats at 2.6M and 8.3M so afterwards I seen that I was actually about 35 secs slower to the 2.6M and 8.3M marks this time, so I must have picked up all that time towards the end.

I finished in 5th position out of the 677 finishers and as the overall 3rd place prize was taken by a 42 year old I got 1st place in the 40-44 category! Incidentally I was only 9 secs behind 4th, damn that pee stop. Age group prizes weren't up to much though, a water bottle, some gels and a smartwool sticker. The post-race food they offer is really good though as is the technical race t-shirt and Smartwool socks you get.

I scoped out some pancake place in New Jersey that looked like it was in an industrial park just off the Palisades Highway on our way home but despite the look it was an old school diner and the strawberry banana pancakes I had were just what I needed.

Then of course, we used our rental car to take all our winter clothing to our storage unit, switched it for the remaining summer clothing, a little active recovery doesn't hurt..... and then went for pizza.

So I was well pleased indeed with that result. An easy week this week although a couple of weeks ago I did enter a 10K for this coming Saturday, ha ha. It's around Roosevelt Island, so it was more the different location that encouraged me to do it, plus it's an NYCRuns event, so a little cheaper and lower key than a NYRR event... AND it's directly off the F train and that's what matters!

The Cherry Tree 10 Miler

One of the best races in the year I think. It's 10M early in the year, so it forces you into some good training to kick start the years racing and more importantly it's cheap and registration and the start are 10 minutes away. Nothing better than going to your own toilet less than 30 minutes before hitting the start line, all runners will appreciate that!

It had snowed the night before but they had plowed the park drive apart from a few patches of slush, probably the most slush I've ever ran through... for a road race! -5 degrees Celsius but not too windy.

© NYC Running Source

Look! There I am on the right.

So, three laps, steady, felt good. Park was cold for half the course and a bit warmer in the sunnier half. Decided to take a sip of water on the second lap, first time I've done a race where I could feel and hear the ice rattling in the bottom of the paper cup!
Ended up on my own-ish for a little while, then halfway round lap two you start encountering some of the slower runners and some of the relay participants. You get a boost when you go past the finish line turn-off as they have all the relay runners lined up waiting as well as the majority of the spectators.

Finished strong and ended up just over a minute faster than last year, albeit it wasn't quite as windy this year. 1.08.34 for 6.51 pace. 46th from 512 finishers and 7th out of 62 in the 40-49 age group. The overall winner was 52.33 by the way!

Then enjoyed some of the valentine's red velvet cake I made the day before.... after my chicken fingers and pizza were delivered.

Due to another snowfall during the week, later work hours and icy conditions I didn't get up to too much this week but another Prospect Park race on Saturday, a nice 4M.
Hopefully the weather is going to turn soon. Snow is all well and good but the trails are just too icy and hard packed to get any decent running in and I'm avoiding the road for as long as I can.

That's more like it!

Another Saturday morning 5K in Prospect Park, The Central Park Founders 5K in tribute to the guy that had founded the Central Park Track Club.

After another uncomfortable couple of weeks, the humidity finally broke on Wednesday night. I did a speed session of sorts on Thursday morning and felt amazing... the fresh air and lack of humidity was I'm guessing like the feeling you'd get if you've been away training at altitude and come back down to sea level so I was hoping for a better time than the last one two weeks ago.
A slightly later start time of 9am, and although the sun was out and it was hot under the sun, the lack of humidity was noticeable and probably 90% of the course in in shade.

When I got to the start line it turned out a tree had fallen down and hit someone earlier on so the start was delayed 30 minutes. Unfortunate for the guy, who was apparently alright and bad news for us as it meant I had to pass the time by sitting on a bench for 20 minutes meditating, watching the swans etc.

The smaller 389 finisher field start

© 2013 SmugMug, Inc.

A woman who is maybe connected to the CPTC took some photos and I popped up in a couple.

Then when we lined up at the start we were informed that because the start had to be moved up a few hundred metres they didn't have time to realign the mile markers so they would be out. Plus the wrist strap on my Polar heart rate monitor had snapped on Thursday. So no mile splits and no heart rate! I don't really use the heart rate on a 5K race but it's nice to see the averages etc afterwards.
So basically I just ran! First time in ages I've not looked at my watch or anything and just ran on feeling, knowing how fast I can hold for a 5K while knowing the course obviously helped.

© 2013 SmugMug, Inc.

I was pleasantly surprised to finish in 19.14 (6.12 mile pace, 62nd/389), about 26 seconds slower than my best time from May's month of supreme fitness, ha ha.

Then a jog up to the farmer's market where I picked up a raspberry danish, a cherry pie pocket, a sweet onion and goat cheese focaccia and some carrot cake.

The week that was

Getting into my shipping and receiving job. Although I need to get into it fast so I can help train a couple of other people! None of the managers even know how to do a lot of the stuff so when I take a day off and the other part-time guy isn't on there is a crap load of things to do the next day I'm in!

I switched my days around so we could go to a concert on Thursday night. During the summer Prospect Park has a lot of free performances and a handful of benefit shows to do with Celebrate Brooklyn so we purchased tickets for one of the benefit shows to see the Scottish group Belle & Sebastian.

A different type of show than normal. There was the regular standing room up front if you were eager but the majority of people take rugs and sit on the grassy slopes, at least until the show starts. They have a lot of different food and drink on sale plus an Etsy store, which if you know what Etsy is, tells you the type of crowd it was catering too.
So we took along our new camp chairs and a little bag of homemade food and juice, gotta save our money for all the future gig tickets we've bought recently.

One of the highlights was getting a lot of folk out of the crowd to dance on stage for a couple of songs, really funny to watch.

Friday night I was back in soccer action. A couple of teams I've played for needed some players for a cup night so I played 30min games with no break, the first outfield and the next two in goal!
During the second game it started raining and during the third it was torrential. It was so bad all the stuff in the bottom of my bag got soaked and I kept having to ring out my gloves and t-shirt.
When we went to the bar afterwards everyone took turns changing in the toilet into whatever slightly dryer clothes they had with them.

Then with my quads a little sore this morning, I sleepily got out of bed just after 7am for a 5K in Prospect Park. The baseball MLB All Star Game is back in New York so they had a tie-in with the race with proceeds to the Hurricane Sandy relief fund.

NYRR

It was "only" 69 degrees but the humidity was apparently 93%, I say apparently but it was high as the sweat was running down my forehead.
I am starting another training programme for some other races but it's proving difficult in the heat. Steady runs are fine but trying to do any ind of speedwork is real hard. I tried running before work on Tuesday but midday is not a good time to run, no shit, and I was dead on my feet.
So with the lack of training and the humidity I was a whole two minutes slower than back in May and even a minute slower than June's 5K. I know I did a tonne of training in the Spring, so much so that my pace was faster for 13M in May than it was for 3M today!

Just seen tonight's news and the weather forecast is for temperatures in the 90's all next week, "and it'll feel like over 100".... great :-(

Another PB!

Wednesday was a full day.
I was up at 5.40am for a 6am work shift. There was a lot of stock and stuff to do as REI has their Anniversary Sale on now and it's been really busy since last Friday.

After work I came home, showered and ate then tried to do a bit of packing for the Hawaii trip.
I did a couple of the local Prospect park Track Club's 5K races last year and I just noticed the first one was on that night, it's only $5 and with all my recent training I was just too tempted to see what time I could achieve, when I really should've stayed home and packed.

It was a warm night but the loop around the park is somewhat shaded so I managed to avoid wilting.

I ran hard from the start, for me anyway and managed mile splits of 6.15, 6.04 and 5.59, coming home in a PB smashing time of 18.54. My first time under 20 minutes, never mind under 19 minutes!
So that's 10 mile, half marathon and 5K PB's in the last 4 days.

Then home, shower, eat... and of course the packing went on until around 1.30am.

Outrun the Subway

Firstly, if you're a fan of Arrested Development then you'll be familiar with the frozen banana stand.... which turned up in a couple of city locations during its "world" tour while promoting the upcoming new Netflix series. We passed by for a snap, the line for posters and photo ops was literally round the block.

Okay. Now onto the main event, Saturday's Brooklyn Half Marathon.

Number pickup on Thurdsday was a great location for me. About 2miles from work on my regular run home over the Manhattan Bridge. I just did 3miles and came home. It was held in the shell of the old tobacco building right under the Brooklyn Bridge.

They gave it a typical Brooklyn flavour with next door having some food stands and music. If you don't know by now that involved cupcakes, tacos, pickles, popcorn and beer.

So how many early starts do I tend to mention here? This morning involved a 4.50am roll out of bed, porridge, bagel, juice and due to the layout of the subway and Prospect Park actually involved taking a taxi the couple of miles to the start area. We have a good taxi service and just called at 5.15am for a 5.30am pickup.

After the Boston Marathon bombings there was increased security and everything had to go in the clear bag they provided at registration and this was partially inspected with only people with race numbers allowed past a certain point. Unusually the port-a-loos were within the start corals and you were limited to using the ones in your coral only. I guess mainly for security but it actually made for shorter lines. The 45 minute wait in the start coral was alright as the weather was perfect for racing, about 15 degrees and only a 3mph wind.

The runners gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum and after a couple of miles loop, came back up around Grand Army Plaza, all the way back around the outside of the park, then into Prospect Park for one complete 3 mile loop before heading out onto Ocean Parkway and the near 6 mile long flat straight drag all the way down to the legendary boardwalk at Coney Island.

I knew the first half of the route like the back of my hand and paced myself just right. I had hoped to get under my 1 hour 30 min pb and although the training had gone really well for the trail half two weeks before, it's never easy knowing what to do in between two races like that and I'd only done a couple of short runs that week.

MarathonFoto.com

I was through the ten mile mark two minutes quicker than I'd actually ran for the DC 10 Miler race last October. I then managed to pick up the pace for the last two miles and the ramp at 13miles up onto the boardwalk for the often forgotten .1 mile was nice as it was all soft and springy underfoot.

I finished in 1:26:49 for 495th place out of an amazing 21, 378 finishers. This was the largest entry field in what was the 33rd running of the event. I averaged 6:38 min miles with a good last mile of 6:22! Pretty good even splits for 5K (21:02), 10K (21:04), 15K (20:07) and 20K (20:17). The first half did have the minor inclines and the short hill in the park.

MarathonFoto.com

The worst part was probably the descending the ten steep metal steps to the baggage area from the boardwalk, ooooh, my quads.

Luckily our F train runs right to Coney Island so it was a short walk to the train although any normal passengers probably got a slight shock to be in carriages full of smelly sweaty runners!
Again, there was weekend work at our stop so I had to get off at the next one and walk home. It's only an extra 5 minutes plus I was glad to walk and it enabled me to stop at the bakery for some Key Lime pie for later.

Mmmm, pie

No doubt, more race pics to follow.

Bear Mountain = excellent!

Race weekend started with a concert on the Friday night.
I was off work on Friday so set off into the city around 4pm to pickup our race numbers from The North Face store on the upper west side. I then met up with Heather while we had some food and headed off to see Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite who is a blues musician and was on the harmonica during this tour.
I'd never been to the Beacon Theatre It was really nice, more like a concert hall, very ornate. I looked it up and although built in 1929 it was renovated in 2009. Although you couldn't quite gauge how old it really was as the decor has a little of that fake old look, a la Las Vegas.

The best bit being the Harlem Gospel Choir who joined them on stage or two or three songs:

So I got to bed around midnight and had to get up at 6.40am for an 8am to 4pm work shift on the Saturday. Although I come home tired it could have been so much worse given how busy recent Saturdays have been!

Race day morning involved a 4.30 am start. Right up until Friday we had planned to run it with friends.... who have a car. Unfortunately due to a death in the family they couldn't go and so we rented a zipcar late Friday for 24 hours and picked it up at 9pm on the Saturday night.
We left just after 5am and due to empty roads got to the car park around 6.15am. From here there were school shuttle buses taking you the 5 miles to the race start area.

It was a little cold up at the start area but you could tell it was going to heat up later so I decided not to bother with arm warmers or anything, plus there were supposed to be three aid stations on the course so I didn't carry any food or drink either.

A chilly start

The race started at 7am and I was in wave 1 due to inputting somewhere around a 7min mile pace for a half. I had read someone's elses blog from last year warning that it narrowed to single track after a couple of miles and that it was difficult to pass, so maybe I went off a little harder than normal from the start. I looked up and could only see around twenty+ people up ahead so thoughts already turned to a top twenty or thirty position, ha ha.

It turned out that apart from a little section of downhill where you had to be careful running behind others as they obscured your vision of the trail it was wide enough to pass, plus I then started picking of other runners once it started heading uphill.

After about 4 or 5 miles the positions settled down and it was actually quite spaced out with me running a little harder to try and keep the guy in front of me in sight. The yellow ribbons (the half marathon colour) tied to the trees were a little difficult to see as they were obscured by the more dominant blue and orange ones but they did have plenty of them and 99% of the course was on a fairly well defined/trodden path with nice arrows if faced with a choice of direction.

I could kind of tell the guy up ahead was more of a road runner as he would pull away on the flatter sections and I would catch up on the uphills. It's good to have someone to track though!

The course was a mixture of mostly dry trails and a lot of rocky paths both uphill and downhill.
The dried out riverbeds full of different sized rocks that were the worst. There was one such downhill section after about 9 miles where I could feel my feet getting bruised and my feet sliding in the shoes, and I was delighted to get back onto the flatter trail to get back to 'normal' running.

The other bad part was a short steep downhill section on a slippy dry dirt path which reminded me about the Ythan Challenge riverbank where you purposely run into the trees to stop yourself falling.
My biceps hurt a little from holding my arms so stiff in order to balance myself coming down these hills. It's mentally tough as you know you can run a lot faster but the terrain limits you from doing this so you often feel yourself sprinting away when you get back to the normal wider paths.

I don't run with a GPS device and there were no mile markers on the course and due to the varying terrain I didn't have any idea of how far I'd run. I knew one aid station was around 8.9M so when I got there I asked and was told around 8.5M so that gave me an idea of where I was.
By this point I had been passed by two other runners on the downhill but there was the longest steepest uphill section just after the aid station and I started catching the guy I had been following all race and one other runner, both of whom were walking uphill.

This was the course profile:

El-eh-vation, woo woo

I looked up some Scottish hill races to gain some perspective on what 2324ft of climb was. It turned out to be a bit more than Bennachie and about the same as Clachnaben, albeit over a 13.1M distance.
The actual race profile turned out to be a bit different than I was expecting, more rolling terrain with a few short sharp ascents and descents. There wasn't the same long constant uphill sections (or downhill) that you get back home and I was actually a little disappointed in the uphill, as that was where I was gaining time on others.
The trails, especially if the weather has been dry, are a lot more dry and dusty than Scotland but there was a good downhill slightly rocky section in the last 2.5M and the Half Marathon race merged with the accompanying 10K race so I really felt I was flying as I tore past the 10K runners!
The two previous months training paid off as I felt really strong here and with the help of two short uphill sections I was able to catch up the two guys that passed me a few miles back and I finished really strongly.

The finish area at Bear Mountain was super nice and the sun had indeed come out and it was nice to sit up on the hill overlooking the finish and wait for Heather to finish the 10K.

I wandered into one of the tents where you could find out your finish time etc. I finished in 1hour 51mins and was absolutely delighted to see that was for 6th position and 2nd in the 36-45 age group!
There were supposed to be over 800 runners but the finishers numbered 666 in the end.

What I eat after a race is funny, as I'd trained solidly for a couple of months for this, it's some kind of relief to go nuts and eat freely for the rest of the day.
I had a somewhat healthy Muscle Milk protein drink and a protein bar along with some water before starting on the Haribo sweets and fig bar biscuits. The couple of small cups of Pepsi they had in the runner tent went down well too.
Back at the car I had a Diet Dr Pepper from our cooler along with a coconut macaroon and then as we didn't have to have the car back until 9pm we made a stop somewhere in New Jersey for some Baskin Robbins ice cream for me and a Taco Bell drive thru for Heather.
On return to Brooklyn, Heather ran into Target for some groceries, you've gotta make the most of having a car here, while I ordered a pizza and cheesecake from an Italian restaurant I keep cycling past.
Around 7.30pm we went back out and drove south thirty blocks to the more Latino area near Sunset Park and using some kind of Cinco de Mayo excuse we tried a little Mexican place I'd read about and came home after dropping the car back with a couple of little taquitos.... followed by the other coconut macaroon and my fourth or fifth can of soda.

I also got a major reminder of my skin colour before we head to Hawaii in a few weeks.
Post-race, I was sitting down for a couple of hours.... under the sun. I did apply a little suncream to my arms and neck, put my cap on, and for a short time I put a small towel over my legs. However, the one part I didn't cover....

Ridiculous

Not too sore in the couple of days afterwards. Just the usual shins and tired quads and calves. Will be doing less running this week, a couple of bike days to work and just generally trying to recover fully before tackling the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 18th!