The NYC Half which usually takes place in the middle of summer was thankfully moved to Spring this year and this was a very good call. Weather yesterday was perfect for running -- sunny, low 50s.
The main objective for me yesterday was to assess my fitness and to practice for fueling and recovery a month ahead of Boston. I have been healthy (knock on wood) and based on my training the past 2 months was expecting to run well. Therefore I knew that a PR was well within reach and a sub-1:23 (which gives you a automatic entry to NYC marathon) possible if I ran the course wise.
But the day of the race is always tricky. Things do happen that are beyond one's control, so finding myself at the back of my corral all I was thinking was to go cautiously and try to average 6.20 mile splits. With a a couple of Jelly Belly beans in hand remembering to get a sip of Gatorade every 2-3 miles, off we went. For the first couple of miles I tried to keep in mind the elevation, since we would have a second go at it before leaving the Park.
I let my body (i.e. legs) take me as fast as it wanted, not trying to force it to a pace if it was not going to happen. It was a good day. All my splits, except for one (I think it was on the hilly West side of the Park), were below 6.20. And upon reaching 7th Avenue I knew that the harder part of the course was over -- all that was left was basically flat. I started to push it a little bit, though cautiously since at that point my quads were feeling heavy. At any rate, I still felt strong and clocked 2 sub-6 minute miles at Miles 10 and 11. Looking at the split times, my 3rd 10K split (10K to 20K) is actually faster by more than a minute than my official 10K PR.
With a mile to go I as able to close the gap with some runners that I had been tailing (50-100 yards in front) since Central Park. Some of them had a sprint left which I could not respond, but that was OK. I saw Robert cheering for the second time in the race with 800 meters, a last boost and the race was over. Official time was 1:21.15, which is a 3 minute plus improvement from my previous PR.
My quads were stiff from the race effort and the massage after was a bit painful. I just had enough time to greet Robert and Helen (who ran the race in a PR) before running the 10 more miles back home to East Harlem. It was slow, long, at times painful, but I was happy.
2 comments:
Again, great run yesterday! That's a huge improvement over your last P.R. Very nice. And now you have the fastest Team Raccoon HM time again.
I was another of Robert's rootees. It looks like you picked me off with those sub-6s. You must have been flying; for the most part I was picking people off all the way down West Street. Congratulations on a fine run.
Joe Garland
Post a Comment