Next race on the horizon

Brooklyn Bridge
Source: Wikipedia

I just signed up for a race across the Brooklyn Bridge. It is organized by the NYPD and will involve running across the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back. My right knee is a bit sore right now (thanks to a couple of really nice long runs and one fast run over the last three days) so I will take the
next two days off from running. On Thursday I will do one more fast run and on Friday another long run, Saturday will be, maybe, a slow jog around the island, and then is race day. I will try to get down to 7 minutes per mile. Not sure how realistic that is but you never know.

I have been looking to join a running club here in New York for a while now. At first I looked at the Dashing Whippets but I personally think the average age of their members is at least a decade too young (for my taste, i.e. w/o having a couple of drinks in me). Then I found the New York Flyers and I still have to join up with them successfully for a group run. They are also organizing a 5k on Roosevelt Island in a couple weeks and I am planning to run that one as well. In the meanwhile I have been increasing my mileage quite a bit. On Saturday I ran from Roosevelt Island, across the Queensboro Bridge, down to 37th Street on 1st Ave, and then all the way down to the Staten Island Ferry terminal along the East River, all in all it was a bit more than 8 1/2 miles. It seems my current average training pace is in the the vicinity of 8 minutes. I read a lot about how training runs should be taken easy and should be 3 or 4 minutes slower than your race pace but I just cannot slow myself down. Running fast just comes naturally. Until my knees give up....

Independence Day

It was a humid day
Photo by Ken Shelton Photography

I decided that I should run at least one race per month. For the month of July I thought I keep it close to home and use my home advantage. I signed up for the NYCRuns Firecracker 5k  which was held on July 4th (Independence Day and my mother's birthday) on Roosevelt Island at 8:30am.

Even though it was rather early in the day it was already quite warm and especially humid. I picked up my packet and was given a beer glass as souvenir. Since I had no place to store it (I live here so I didn't bring a backpack) I just went back home, left it on the kitchen counter, and did a light warm-up jog back to the start line. Compared to my last run this one was as laid back as it could be. A little less than 400 runners gathered at the start line and there wasn't much need to dodge others to get into a good position. Despite the weather I did extremely well and put up a new personal record (PR in runner's speech). I finished the 5000 meters in 22:46 which put me in 48th place, 7th in my age group of 40-49 years. I tried hard to gather some more speed in the end but I was too exhausted already. This was a great race and I stuck around the finish line to watch the finishers of the 10k race that was scheduled right after. It was amazing to see how the winner looked as fresh as if nothing happened over the last 30-some minutes. I want to be in that place some day (not necessarily being able to run 5 minute miles but running 6 miles as if it was just a walk down to the grocery store). The winner of the 5k was a 13 year old boy who finished in 17 minutes or so. I'm in awe. I wonder if I can persuade any of my children to take up running with me.

I poked around NYCRuns calendar and I picked a few races and runs that look interesting and will challenge me further. I think I will double my number of races per month (as my wallet permits, of course; races cost money after all).

Sgt. Keith A. Ferguson 5k Run/Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

Aug 4, 2013

The Laurie Harris Hope & Dreams 5k race against pancreatic cancer

Aug 10, 2013

14.2 mile Manhattan training run

Sep 1, 2013

NYCRUNS Labor Day 5k & 10k

Sep 2, 2013

Paine to Pain trail half marathon

Oct 6, 2013

Zombies take Manhattan

Oct 26, 2013

Flushing Meadows 5k

Nov 23, 2013

These should keep me busy. I am not quite sure, yet, about the 14.2 mile run (which is not a race and therefore shouldn't demand too much) and the Labor Day run the following day. If I decided not to do the long one (and it would be a shame not to because the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is one of the most awesome routes to run in Manhattan) I'd do the 10k Labor Day. Otherwise I will just do a 5k or skip the Labor Day altogether. We'll see.

Running on Roosevelt Island

Before I talk about my second race on Independence Day let me talk a little bit about Roosevelt Island from a runner's point of view. Ever since my stint in the German military I had a knack for running. Back in Gymnasium (something like high school here) I despised anything that had to do with sports. Mostly because of the group aspect of it. The least I hated was field and track but I hated it nonetheless. Fast forward to a physical activity that our commanding officer told us to do: run or at least walk a few miles through some forest. It turned out that I and one of my roommates were the only ones who actually ran. I ran because he ran and I realized it was fun. It wasn't a great time I ran or anything like that but thanks to him I found something out about me: running can actually be fun. I assume I especially like the solitary side of it. I don't have to mingle with people. Nothing substantial came from it until many years later when I was living with my wife on Staten Island, right across Silver Lake Park on Victory Boulevard. The lake in the middle and the pathway around it was a huge invitation and temptation to just give it a try. When I lost my job and was "in between jobs" for two months back in 2001 I had nothing better to do. My wife went off to work every day and I strapped on my shoes. Some crummy sneakers I found in the closet. It was an easy 1.3 miles run but, me being me, I did not start it slow and a couple weeks in my knees were creaking, popping, and hurting and I had to stop. I realized, though, that having a place to run right across the street makes things a lot easier.

I didn't pick up running for another five years or so. My first child was around three years of age and we were living on Roosevelt Island. I remember the day when my toddler was invited to a birthday party in some other part of town (I believe it was on Staten Island) and we were on the way to the subway station when my wife said that she forgot something at home. It was something important and I suggested that I would just run back home quickly to fetch it while she and the kid would just go ahead and wait for me at the station. For some reason I literally ran home, fetched whatever we forgot, and ran back to them. I felt good. I suggested that same day that I think I should do some running. The rest, as they say, was history.

Running on Roosevelt Island is a dream. You step out of your building and you just run. There are no streets to cross, no cars to avoid, no traffic lights to stop at, no pedestrians or bicyclists to dodge, or dog poop to step in. As I mentioned before, one  time around the island is a little more than 5k and it is nearly flat (so, if you want to do some hill work you either go to nearby Central Park or, more about that later as well, go across the Queens Boro Bridge [excuse me, Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge]). It doesn't give you many excuses not to run and a lot of reasons why you should not skip today's run. It has been becoming quite popular with a lot of residents and non-residents as well. Organizations, like NYCRuns, use Roosevelt Island for more and more of their events.

My First Race

Waiting for the start

I am the kind of guy who needs to know what to expect before he goes into something new. I wanted to know what to expect at a 5k race. To be a bit more specific, what to expect at your very first 5k race. I found a lot of information about how to train for it and race etiquette but nothing really about the experience of the race. That's probably one of my main motivations to get this blog going. I want to tell about my experience. Well, here we go...

First off, it all depends on what the race is, of course. There are races that attract thousands of people and there are once that are a lot more laid back. There are ones that are organized to the wazoo and there are others that are not. The JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge attracts thousands of people (think five digits). It is also quite chaotic and I didn't see that many volunteers trying to keep order but maybe they were just drowning in the masses of runners. The run started in five waves, all of them color coded with the first wave, i.e. the fastest runners, being red and the last wave, i.e. the slowest runners, joggers, and walkers, being white. I was assigned orange which was the one just before the white. Just when the race was about to start you were supposed to walk to the coral of your assigned color and wait there with thousands of other participants. A quick look around already made clear that quite a few runners didn't take it too seriously and just walked to the for them most convenient starting point (even though it was said that there will be staff to make sure that everybody will start in their assigned wave - no exception - but I just can't see how realistic that could be). Among the orange there were all other colors represented, too. The corals for the faster runners were the farthest away from the lawns where the teams gathered, so I guess it is not surprising too much. I'd wager a guess that it is probably more enforced when you go towards the "elite" runners in front. I will see for myself next year.

The picture above shows how crazy crowded it was. The starting line was not visible at all from my location and once we all started to walk/jog/eventually run towards it it was clear how many runners there were. It took us probably around 5 to 10 minutes of walking before we finally crossed the line. There was no gun shot or any announcements. The only reason I knew we were starting was that the crowd in front of me started to move forward. I then prepped my music (lately Eisbrecher seems to be the perfect companion music for me) and my running app (RunDouble - but see a planned entry for my reviews of selected running apps) and as soon as I crossed the line it was on. Well... almost. I was faster than most in the orange group. As I mentioned in my last entry I underestimated my pace by quite a bit and that pretty much resulted in me running around many people, unfortunately stepping into other people's way, and running on the grassy and muddy shoulders of the route. The stop and go impacted my overall pace quite a bit.

Eventually I did get into my running routine and ran. I ran the same route once before to get acquainted to it so there weren't too many surprises, with the only exception that it was a 3.5 miles race and not a 5k (3.11 miles). In the end I had to push quite a bit to keep the pace up but I made it. In training runs before I was able to maintain an 8 minute-mile but due to the stop-and-go and zig-zagging I averaged a 8:30 minutes per mile and finished the course in 29:46 minutes. Not too bad, I'd say. I ended probably in the top third of all participants and I placed number 14 of NYU's team of 124.

This was my very first race ever. The first time I pinned on a bib on the front of my shirt (number 14744). The first time I ran by a water station at the side of the road. The first time to run with a bunch of other people. The first time with the potential of being competitive. It was an awesome experience and I am hooked. My goal from now on will be to run at least one race a month. For July I already signed up for the NYCRUNS Firecracker 5K in my backyard on Roosevelt Island. Stay tuned.