Yesterday I ran the NYRR 5th Ave Mile, which was my third race in three weekends. I've never raced a mile before, so honestly didn't know what to expect. It seemed fun that your race would be over with within a few minutes- something that my previous races as of late have NOT been!
I ran slowly over to the start, and was already tired by my nearly 2 mile warm up! When I got there, I was waiting to meet my former roommate when Stephanie appeared. Then Jocelyn, Meggie, Jessica and Jenny found us! It was great to run into friends and have people to hang out with before the start of the race!
There seemed to be a lot of confusion about where we were starting, why we were running with an age group ranging from 15-29 and what the weird barrier in the middle of the road, blocking the corral, was there for! Finally, the gun (horn?) went off, and people started running and we finally made it into the corral. After the race already started. Note to NYRR: the barrier that took up almost the entire road was just weird and didn't make any sense.
We got to the starting line fairly quickly and took off. It felt really hard, but that's probably because my watch said 4:xx. Um, I'm confident I can't run a 4-anything minute mile, and wanted to quit after a quarter mile, so slowed down! I also had a really weird tingly tongue sensation- has this happened to anyone else when running fast/faster than you normally do!? It lasted the entire mile and was so bizarre!
After realizing that I would crash and burn if I kept up my 4:xx pace, I was holding on to a low 6-minute pace, which is what I was hoping for, but that still felt really hard. I haven't done any speedwork or tempo runs in weeks (bad, I know) so haven't run anything faster than a high 7-minute mile in the recent past. (Note to self: start doing speedwork again, after my legs recover from 4 races in 3 weekends!) My legs felt like lead and it felt like I was moving in slow motion, except it felt super hard! Apparently, I should stick to longer distances!
Here are the official results:
For not doing speedwork or knowing how to race a mile, I'll take it! And will actually attempt a mile speed trial before this race next year if I do it again...
The race started at 8:55 and was over just after 9am, which allowed me time to have breakfast with a friend, go home and shower, hang out a bit and get back down to 5th Ave and 60th Street in time to meet Kara Goucher!
I ran slowly over to the start, and was already tired by my nearly 2 mile warm up! When I got there, I was waiting to meet my former roommate when Stephanie appeared. Then Jocelyn, Meggie, Jessica and Jenny found us! It was great to run into friends and have people to hang out with before the start of the race!
There seemed to be a lot of confusion about where we were starting, why we were running with an age group ranging from 15-29 and what the weird barrier in the middle of the road, blocking the corral, was there for! Finally, the gun (horn?) went off, and people started running and we finally made it into the corral. After the race already started. Note to NYRR: the barrier that took up almost the entire road was just weird and didn't make any sense.
We got to the starting line fairly quickly and took off. It felt really hard, but that's probably because my watch said 4:xx. Um, I'm confident I can't run a 4-anything minute mile, and wanted to quit after a quarter mile, so slowed down! I also had a really weird tingly tongue sensation- has this happened to anyone else when running fast/faster than you normally do!? It lasted the entire mile and was so bizarre!
After realizing that I would crash and burn if I kept up my 4:xx pace, I was holding on to a low 6-minute pace, which is what I was hoping for, but that still felt really hard. I haven't done any speedwork or tempo runs in weeks (bad, I know) so haven't run anything faster than a high 7-minute mile in the recent past. (Note to self: start doing speedwork again, after my legs recover from 4 races in 3 weekends!) My legs felt like lead and it felt like I was moving in slow motion, except it felt super hard! Apparently, I should stick to longer distances!
Here are the official results:
For not doing speedwork or knowing how to race a mile, I'll take it! And will actually attempt a mile speed trial before this race next year if I do it again...
The race started at 8:55 and was over just after 9am, which allowed me time to have breakfast with a friend, go home and shower, hang out a bit and get back down to 5th Ave and 60th Street in time to meet Kara Goucher!
I love her. She's so friendly and down-to-earth and genuinely seemed to care about each and every person that she met yesterday.
After meeting Kara, I found a spot right in front to watch the elites run their mile race. They looked like this. Note: this is NOT how I looked while running. And they finished in 4:xx. Amazing.
You can't even see their shoes they're so fast!
All in all, it was an awesome day! The weather was perfect, the running was (mostly) fun, it was great to meet Kara Goucher and see these crazy fast elites!!!
Do you prefer to run shorter or longer races? How do you pace yourself for a mile race?
Nice meeting you and glad I had your pony tail as my guide for the race!
ReplyDelete:) Great to meet you too, and let's definitely run together sometime!
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