It was cold -- 19 F. Of course, I left bib pickup until race day. For winter races this is a bit of a nightmare. NYRR handles bib distribution at the club house at 89th and Fifth. The finish (and baggage) were at 72 street on the transverse. The start was near the late Tavern on the Green, in the 60s, on the West side of the Park. I left lots of time to accomplish all of this, so that meant a couple of bonus miles staying warm.
As I have mentioned, I've been feeling creaky and slow, so I wasn't sure whether to treat this as the first part of a long slow training run, or as a chance to air out the legs and see how fast they'd go. Well, as usual, the adrenaline got to me, and I took off at the start. I did not have the speed of early October, where I pretty much held 7:15-7:45. This time I spent he race between 7:45 and 8:15. The third mile was faster (downhill), than that, and mile 11 was slower (uphill). The one disappointment was that I sort of died at the end. For most of the race I was hanging with a "pod" of runners who were maintaining a steady effort. In mile 11, I slowed a little bit, and they held steady. I'm not sure why. I just didn't feel it in my legs. The end result was 1:45.59, a solid result for me. Granted, this was a bit more than 5 minutes slower than the Staten Island Half in October. But then, the conditions were better, and I was further along on the training schedule. For the first race of the season, in late January, I'll take it.
Tremendous. Congrats.
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