Say Yes to Salad

On Wednesday night I ran in JP Morgan’s Corporate Challenge. It’s a 3.5 mile race in Central Park.

Wednesday night was also Bobby’s birthday and his band (The Balls) had a show in Brooklyn.

The race started at the 72nd Street Transverse, wound up above and around the reservoir to about 104th street, and then came down on the east side. I finished the race in 35:51.

I have to be honest, when other people write “race recaps” I usually end up skimming them. So I will not be offended if you skim this.

In the beginning there were a lot of people and we were getting shuffled around (7pm). I was in the blue group, which was the slowest of the faster groups (the first waves to go). We had all submitted time estimates in advance, which is how we got grouped – red was the fastest, then yellow, then green, then blue. Orange and white (white is walking) were separate from us and started once red/yellow/green/blue had all gone.

We shuffled towards the starting line for almost 15 minutes after the 7pm starting time passed, and when I passed the starting line I began to jog (around 7:14pm). The first mile was my fastest. I think I kept about an 8.5-minute pace. There were only a few uphills and a couple of fortuitous downhills. At the water station after mile 1 I drank a cup and poured some water on my head.

Mile two was a little slower, probably a 9.5-minute mile. This mile started getting hilly and I realized that my training runs had been slower than I was running now. I didn’t stop though, and ran past the 2-mile mark.

Mile 3. There was no water in sight after the mile 2 mark and my chest was begging me for a break, so I started walking. I didn’t walk for long, maybe 30 seconds, but it was enough for me to get some energy back and continue. I took a slow jog up to the next water station, and drank some more. After that I felt great but then we hit some hills. I had to walk I think 2 more times and my time probably ended up being over 12 minutes for this mile.

Last half mile. I was jogging slowly at this point, but I knew I was close so I kept going. I walked once for about 15 seconds. When I got close to the finish line I picked up the pace, saw Bobby on the sideline, and ran past him for a high five. I sprinted after that, maybe 100 yards, and crossed the finish! I felt like I was going to puke but I didn’t.

Lessons learned:

1. I love racing! There is something so exciting and fun about running in such a large group of people.
2. I am slower than I thought, but I think I can improve. I didn’t train for this except for a couple 2-3 mile runs over the last two months. On those runs I didn’t check my time and I did not run on hills.
3. Running can be really fun. It’s also challenging.
4. Water stations are great.

After the race I met up with Bobby and we booked it to Brooklyn for his show. He was supposed to go on at 8:45 and we made it just before 8:40 with just enough time to set up his keys. After the show we had a fantastic dinner at this place: The Anchored Inn. There are so many good cheap places to eat in Brooklyn. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I still live in Manhattan and pay $15 for a salad…

I got a delicious large $9 salad: radish, cucumber, avocado, queso fresco, pumpkin seed, pickled onion, chile vinaigrette. Bobby got the bacon wrapped hot dog. We split roasted Brussels sprouts: brussels with pickled apple, serrano, horsey sauce.

Yesterday I was a bit sore but nothing terrible. Last night I ended up going out with coworkers + Bobby and didn’t sleep well afterwards so I was up early today. This morning I went for a nice slow walk over to Central Park where I saw this weird pink fluffy tree (what is it?):

Have you ever raced before?