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.

Urban Environmental Challenge

As part of the training for running the Bear Mountain Half and also as part of a continual search for new (off-road) runs I took the one hour forty minute, three train ride north into the Bronx to Van Cortland Park where the local club organise the Urban Environmental Challenge, excitingly billed as "a 10K of true cross country trails".

After last weeks "vacation" walks around the city and getting the cold I got my training back on track with a couple of 6 mile efforts during the week and then finally got a longer 11M run in on Friday morning. With my dry throat and runny nose combined with the warmer weather it was a pretty rough run. I had to lie on the stretching mat for 5 minutes with my eyes closed to recover but then went and killed myself by playing soccer later that night!

So my quads were a little tired this morning but I felt quite good once I got going. Spring is most definitely here now, luckily it was all under tree cover but afterwards it was flip flop weather and mild sunburn weather too, probably.

Right in the middle

The course started on the gravel paths but very quickly turned off onto proper little woodland trails, yay. At last, some true off-roading. Well marked with little orange flags and marshalls at the turns. I had no idea where I was in relation to the main park and even when we dipped back down to the starting path, we quickly went back into the woods and took a different route thus avoiding running the same trail, which is always nice.

Breaking out the vest for 2014 on the main gravel path

As usual, after a couple of miles things settle down and you have the same few runners in your sights, etc. I ended up passing a few without really being passed at all. You can maintain a decent pace despite the twists and turns and it was similar to Bear Mountain (and most other proper trail races) where your attention doesn't really shift from where you're planting your feet and staying on course that you don't have as much time to focus on things like tiredness!

I knew the age group prizes were (some supposedly very tasty) carrot cakes and knew/hoped I would be there or thereabouts for an award. I reeled in a guy in the last mile but he passed me dropping back onto the final gravel path run in and I didn't have the strength to keep with him.
Turned out that there were some good runners in the 40-49 age group and of course, he turned out to be the 3rd one!! I finished 12th overall but 4th 40-49 so just missed out.

Urgh, 4th. WTF.

I had persuaded two friends of ours, also doing the Bear Moutain Half, that this would be good training for them and Dawna, in her first ever trail run managed 2nd in the 30-39 females! So in the end after brunch we shared a piece of her carrot cake. It was tasty, more cake-like than usual but thankfully it was only the winners that got the massive ones otherwise I really would have been upset.

Only $19 to enter too. So if you ever want to run a 10K in Central Park with 8000+ people strictly organised by NYRR's and then the following week do a relaxed, low-key, couple of hundred people trail race where they delay the start by 4 minutes as people walk over from registration then this is your time of year to visit.

Kurt Steiner 5K

Sunday, a beautiful bright sunny morning and a two hour, 1 bus and 3 train ride up to Van Cortland Park for a 5K New York Road Runner's Cross Country.

After the half marathon, the 10K the week after this was going to be my final 'serious' race for the season. I couldn't make the previous one and the 40-44 age group results showed the medals for the top 3 were up for grabs.... maybe, fingers crossed.

A good size field of 280 runners, I'd have preferred a better warm up but train delays put paid to that. I set off and eventually the field was strung out. Eventually I caught up with the 1st placed girl and used her as bait to pull me on and then concentrated on catching the guy in front over the last 1/4 mile.

My heart rate actually maxed out at 213 at the finish after I tried my hardest! I walked slowly past the medal table, your age groups are on the race numbers, and after the guy in front got something they called me back and handed me a medal.

So I got 2nd 40-44, yay! 19.26 (6.17 pace) but you can tell there were a lot of good club runners (because it's a NYRR event) as I was 38th place in total.

The results are funny because if you are a NYRR member you can fill in your club name or where you live such as Brooklyn or Queens, etc but you can put your country if you are not American. So I was first Brit, ha ha, the first page of results has a finisher from Canada, Israel, France, Spain, Paraguay and more.
The winner has won a few of the races, he is from Uganda. No photos of me this time but a couple of the winner to show the nice sunny weather we still have, ha ha.

 
It's just now starting to get close to dipping below the 10 degrees mark.
We can moan about the humidity during the summer but the other side to that is today was the first day since sometime in April that I didn't wear shorts to work!

NYRR Medalist

Sunday was the NYRR Henry Isola Cross Country Classic back up around Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. My first race in the Over 40 category (40-44).

The weather had been 90 degrees a couple of days before, one of the latest in the year 90 degree days for a long time apparently. But after a quick thunderstorm complete with crazy lightning, the humidity was gone and it was perfect running weather again, around 19 degrees.
Of course I now have a light sunburn mark from my vest despite being in the sun for all of 30 minutes!

The park area looked good, lots of football games on and a couple of groups of Indians playing cricket. Plus before our race there were some school cross country championships on too, which included a few runners that looked like running wasn't really their primary sport.

Two loops, around the grass field and up and down a short sharp hill among the trees with a good long gravel stretch to unleash your kick to the finish.

Around 250 runners, I went off hard and quickly settled in as normal, going back and forth with the same couple of runners. Getting passed on the uphill and passing them on the downhill. Used another runner to drag myself towards a stronger finish than if I'd been on my own for sure.
Then as I walked past the table at the finish they handed me a medal! Second place in my age group!

Woo-hoo, my first medal in NY. I knew I needed a combination of a good run and good luck as I came in 23rd overall! 26.01, 6.31 pace, also 1 min 30 behind the 1st place 40 year old which I was glad to see, nothing worse than if the guy that finished in the same time as me was the other 40+ runner.

So next Sunday is the Fifth Avenue Mile where my biggest concern is what kind of warm up I do for that??
Then Heather deferred her entry to the Marine Core Marathon until 2014 so we're not going to bother going down to DC for my 10K. That was what I was training for, along with an upcoming trail half marathon. So instead I paid way too much to enter the Rock and Roll 10K in Prospect Park in October so as not to make the training totally worthless as I attempt to get a PB in a 10K this year too.

Columbus Circle

A couple of Sundays ago on a foggy winters morning we went up to the Columbus Circle monument at the south west corner of Central Park to see a free exhibition, Discovering Columbus.
This is what the monument normally looks like:

A Japanese artist (Tatzu Nishi) had turned this into a living room with the statue in the centre of the room!

Even after seeing all the scaffolding surrounding the monument and climbing the steps, when you stepped inside it was so weird to think this was the top of that statue you see so many times when we visit Central Park for a run.

With the misty morning there were some good views from the door when we exited too.

Upon leaving, we also spotted another random piece of metal down one of the streets so we photographed that too.

And as Heather went home I headed north to Van Cortland Park again to do another cross country but a 15K course this time. I wasn't looking forward to it that much and it took all my energy not to head home with Heather but once I got going I really enjoyed it. Back home doing any kind of hill race I am decidedly middle of the pack when it comes to descending (albeit steeper hills that this) but here I was passing, flying past, everyone else until the very end when I must have caught up with a couple of guys my pace.

In other work related news I am still getting used to the hours. Deciding which ones I like (or hate) most, ha ha. The shifts run for 8½ hours with two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute break. All other time is literally spent on my feet and with a lot of warehouse type work reaching for shoes and on some days unpacking footwear and hats, gloves & sock boxes it is quite tiring work. When you throw in a typical really busy Saturday or Sunday and (occasionally Mondays) it can be pretty hard going and warm through the back of the storeroom!
The shops staff hours run from 6am to 9.30pm or even a few upcoming 10.30pm's when we open late until 10pm in the run up to Christmas and therefore I have worked a variety of shifts:

6am to 2.30pm shift - getting up at 4.40am which isn't early morning, it's the middle of the night has got easier and this shift passes the quickest and allows me to cycle home in the daylight but with limited sleep the night before and surrounded by other working days means I feel like falling asleep by 5pm.
1.00pm to 9.30pm shift - the later start means you can run an errand or go for a run beforehand but it also means I'm not home until about 10.20pm and you don't feel like eating that late and going straight to bed but I'm often hungry for a snack as it's difficult to eat a full 'normal' evening meal in 30mins and be able to move about comfortably afterwards.
There are some in between shifts too and as I'm classified as part time I have had two or three days off per week but I did just work seven days in a row, all various shifts and by the time it was the last day of those I really was just destroyed and shuffling about but as I said before at this moment I'll take anything as I need cash money $$$.

Last week I was also the victim of credit card fraud. I got an alert after $300 was debited and it was from some website in Florida. Probably not connected but it's still weird that unless you select 'debit' and key in your pin it goes through as credit and you have to sign the slips where nobody ever checks the signature on the back, EVER.

Fred Lebow XC

Now that it's into Winter it's cross country season and I spotted a 5K XC away up in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. In the true tradition of cross country it was only $15 to enter so on November 18th we set off on a 1 hour and 45 minute journey for a race that lasted under 22 minutes!
With weekend subway work this meant a shuttle bus to the nearest subway stop that was open and then three separate trains all the way up to 242nd street, the furthest north I have set foot in New York City.

There was a field of about 250 and the course was some grass then some gravel paths up through some little hills. It was only 7 degrees but sunny and little wind, maybe with some rain it would've been a bit more like proper cross country conditions but I did enjoy competing in shorts and t-shirt in the middle of November!

The small field made a nice change from the thousands that have been in most of the other races I've done here. Maybe it was the location, the fact it was cross country or the fact for your $15 you get... a cup of water at the finish. Excellent.
Souvenirs are nice but when it costs $50 to run a local 5K it kinda makes you think twice entering.