This morning, my race was the Bronx 10 Mile race with the New York Road Runners. I must confess, although I did some light runs this week, I completely dropped the ball on running during vacation. In other words, almost 2 weeks of no running before my longest race to date and I definitely began to regret not feeling more prepared.
But on the other hand, while I may not have followed textbook prep, I have run 9-10 mile distance runs each week for maybe 2 months now, and have felt very comfortable with them. For this reason, I was also really excited to run a race longer than six miles. Really excited.
My very Bronx-savvy Mister drove up with me and we quickly found the starting area where I was faced with a single fateful choice: Right, towards the gauntlet of port-a-potties (and what looked like four hundred people in line) or left, towards the start. About thirty-five percent of me wanted to go right, but ninety-nine percent of me is impatient. Left it was.
I dove into my orange coral, waved good bye to the mister, and was off at 8:00 am sharp. I still can't get used to running in the middle of New York City streets, a la the Percy Sutton. This race was roughly five miles down the Grand Concourse, a small loop, and then back down on the other side of the road. It was so quiet it was almost eerie; after we left the majority of the spectators the loudest sound was thousands of feet pounding. I did like that this course doubled back because right as I began to feel worn, the lead runner passed us- and behind him, more elite. Between seeing other people kill it and the enthusiasm from runners cheering for them, I found my second wind which carried me well into mile 8.
Can't lie, mile 8 hurt and by mile 9 I was literally counting down the streets to the finish line and praying that it would emerge on the horizon soon, partially because I was eager to meet my goal of finishing sub 1:30. Which I did! Barely! But I will happily accept 1:29:49. Very happily.