determinedSince I'm a runner that thrives on getting the legs going, I jogged to the park from my apartment which is about 2 miles. It was pretty darn chilly as it was in the Left>
Finally, I approach mile 1 (according to NYRR) but realize something is off! There is no way in heck I ran an 8:10-8:15 min/mile! Not with the effort I gave. However, instead of getting frustrated and throwing in the towel, I kept running hard. As I approached the transverse, I realized I was in line with one of theRight></a> Harriers that generally runs faster than I do. However, he was conversing saying that he was running 7:30s because he is doing Boston next week. At this point, I still had absolutely no idea what I was running! I just kind of went with the flow and how my body responded. I still felt OK so I decided to run a little harder. In the West 90s I passed by El Presidente and I believe he got a photo of me. I approached West 84th and saw the pom pom brigade once more. At this point I had passed "mile 3" and realized that it wasn't a matter of IF I was going to PR, but by HOW much! I gave a bit of a smirk smile to the girls at this point so they knew I acknowledged but I was ready to bring home a new PR.
As I rounded the corner at W 72nd onto the transverse I saw the finish line and still had no idea about what I was about to achieve. You see I totally miscalculated the time thinking I was only PR'ing by a couple seconds. I crossed the finish line and stopped my watch at 28:50 (however, according to a source though my time says 28:49, I actually ran 28:48 since they round up!). However, in the heat of the moment, I thought I had PR'd by 3 seconds before realizing....no I had PR'd by 1:03 (last 4 mile PR set back in Feb)!!!!!! I had run a 7:12 pace without even having a clue. Honestly, it didn't feel that tough and I still had juice in the tank.
After the race, I ran into nyflygirl at the baggage area. It's fun to start recognizing people at the races! Unfortunately I didn't see Danny, Shore Turtle or Phil but it appears they were there too:) Congrats everyone!
My splits...as screwed up as they may be: miles 1/2: 15:23 (mile 1 was like 8:15?!)/mile 3: 7:22/mile 4: 6:04. I wish I knew my splits because this race kicked ass! So why the curls? I went to Devachan yesterday and got my haircut for the first time since October?! And can I say, I was smiling ear to ear when I left:-) I joked with my friends last night that today's race is dedicated to the curls...hmm maybe it was the curls;-)
I feel like I'm finally starting to see the speed show up on race day...and all that hard work/training paying off. It's so nice to know that I will not need to stop speeding up in order to train for a marathon this year. Quite the contrary. As now I have my eyes set on a new goal....sub 7 minute miles baby. It's coming soon to a race near you....;-)
