Cherry Tree 10 Miler

This morning was my first race since I got injured last November. I came in with no expectations, no idea how I would do. I would be happy with running at my expected marathon pace of 6.55 per mile, which would make a 1:09.10 run.

Unlike the other local races, I went with Robert to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for the race. It was an early morning, but it turned out to be quite a fun one. The level of organization was nowhere near the ones organized by the New York Road Runners. It was a small event with only a couple of hundreds runners. There were no chips, mile signage was basic, there were no clocks around except for the finish line and after 12 hours I still want to find out my placing... But what they lacked, the volunteers and organizers made up in enthusiasm. Because the race was small in scale, I felt a tight sense of community with the post-race being held in the cafeteria of high-school where there were possibilities to interact with other runners.

The race itself went much better than I had expected. It was 3 laps around the park which has some challenging up-hills on the north side. I wanted to take the beginning slowly as I had not ran around the park before. Robert started faster, but I was able to catch up with him close to Mile 5. The last miles were rough as I was going faster than my planned marathon pace and also because I had not raced recently. I simply followed a runner in front of me and followed him till the finish line. I could not have gotten through the last pass at the those hills (the calves were burning!) without him leading the way. I only wished I could have led more and pushed our pace.

My finish time was 1:03.55, which makes 6.23 per mile. I plugged that time in one of those online marathon predictors and it gave me 3:01 marathon. The sub-3 hour marathon search is still alive, but I do not want to think about it just yet. Only a perfect race in St. Louis will enable me to reach that goal.

I plan to run a 15K on March 22, but other than that I have no other races scheduled before St. Louis.