I ran 2 races this weekend. The NYRR 5th Avenue Mile in Manhattan down 5th Avenue next to Central Park on Saturday 9/13/14 and The NYCRuns Queens Half in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on Sunday 9/14/14.

I was not adequately prepared for either. Basically this summer was not a good stretch of training for me. I had a difficult half on June 1st in which it was so hot and humid and I had a miserable death slog during the last 6 miles after starting off at PR pace, and then a 10 miler on June 15th that I slogged through. I was just NOT motivated to get out there in the heat and humidity and fell off the wagon. I pushed myself to run at least a couple times a week but mostly in the 3-5 mile range. Nothing long, nothing fast. In August and September I was able to get through a few longer runs, with my longest being 9.5 miles, but I had no reason to expect anything exciting from either of these races. I have also gained quite a bit of weight....meh. Whatever.

First up with the Fifth Avenue Mile.

I registered for this kind of on a whim a few weeks ago. I am doing the 9+1 NYRR program this year (run 9 NYRR races in a calendar year and volunteer at an additional race and get guaranteed entry to the NYC Marathon of the next year) and I needed a few more races to meet 9. I have never raced a mile, so I thought it would be fun to give it a go. I did no mile specific training, and nothing resembling speedwork this summer, so I had no reason to expect my best possible performance, but I did plan on going out there and giving it all I had in me.

I did a mile warmup (I wanted to do 2, but they were calling my age group to the start line early as they were doing bag screening and bag check inside of the corral so I didn't have time for my second mile). There were separate races for each age group, which was cool to only be racing against my age group and gender. The professional athletes compete last. The course is great, 5th Avenue next to Central Park from 79th to 59th. A small uphill in the 2nd quarter but otherwise pretty flat. Decent crowd support. It was a nice, cool, cloudy morning with low humidity and temperatures in the low 60s. I was hoping for under 8:30 but would be happy with anything under 9:00. I thought both goals were reasonable as my 5K PR is a 9:05 pace, but that was set 18 months ago and I have been frustratingly unable to beat it since, and with my summer of suck who knew, really.

Ran as fast as I could.....probably went out too fast as I was in the mid to high 7:00s whenever I glanced at the Garmin during the first quarter, and the time clock at the 1/4 marker read like 2:30 and I had started at least 30 seconds after the gun. Slowed down quite a bit on the second quarter hill..... just tried to keep it under 9:00. Stopped looking at the Garmin the 2nd half and just ran as hard as I could. I was sucking wind HARD by the end. As evidenced by the picture below. I finished in 8:38. Overall, I was very pleased. For the record....the pro winners of the race were Jenny Simpson with a 4:19.4 for the women and Jordan McNamara for the men with 3:51.0. DANG!!

Pics....the first one is.....special:

Next up was the Queens Half.

It was perfect running weather. Sunny, breezy, low humidity, started in the low 50s and ended in the low 60s. The race took place in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and was two loops of the park. It was cool....ran in the shadow of CitiField home of my Mets, near the US Open Tennis arena, and ran past some cool icons from the Worlds Fair that was held twice in that park. Saw bluerun before the race, and met up with a friend from another internet running group. Was nervous about the race but pretty caviler. I had gone to a Rutgers game the night before and got home late, was going to a Giants game right after the race, I was tired, my head wasn't in it, I had slept as late as possible, didn't eat breakfast first, got lost getting there, and didn't warm up at all. But the gun went off and suddenly I needed to quickly come to terms with running 13.1 miles.

I won't post many details about the race because....well.....as you could all expect it was nothing spectacular. I ended up meeting several cool women on the course though who were also wearing SparkleSkirts. In mile 2 or 3 I came across 2 ladies wearing matching outfits including zebra striped SparkleSkirts. I complimented their outfits and we started chatting. We were running about the same pace and enjoying each other's company and I ended up running the rest of the race with them. I had no time goals and appreciated the company and chatter. Ran the whole thing easy, never pushed the pace. I had some major chafing issues, and problems with the tongue of my shoe that kept sliding and I had to retie my shoe a few times. Just weird issues that I hadn't encountered before. It ended up being my slowest half to date at 2:49:20...almost a half hour slower than my PR. But I finished my 7th half marathon. And got a shiny medal, had fun, met new people, and enjoyed a beautiful morning for running in a nice park. And it was a nice kick in the butt to get back to real training so I can salvage my fall racing season!!

Pics:

What was more painful, the mile or the HM?  Races in NYC look fun and as usual, it sounds like you had a great time. Congrats on your mile time.

Glad you were able to get out there and enjoy the event.  Hope that brings some of the enjoyment of running back for you.

Congrats! That mile looks fun.

Nice job and great pics! Glad that you had fun again after those slogfest races earlier in the year.

Congrats on your races.  That's a good time for the mile when you had not much chance to train for it.  Like you said, the HM will jump start your running for the fall.  Way to go!

Nice report and nice photos!  Congrats on both your races!

Can an outsider say from another state run that mile?