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| Go Flyers! |
Only six weeks or so left in this year's summer and one more month with a full racing calendar. I have been taking advantage of this weather and raced pretty much every NYCRUNS and some selected NYRR races and have a few left. I also enrolled in a coached running class offered by the NY Flyers, won a first place in my age group twice, improved my 5k, 5M, and 10k PRs, volunteered in this year's iteration of the Marathon Long Training Run, and injured my right knee once more. Let's start with an overview:
It all started with a very humid day out there in Brooklyn on Shore Road. After I missed the first race of this mini series (last year I only ran the very last one) I was able to attend the second one. It was again a very simple out and back race that made us cross underneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge twice. Unfortunately, I bought a new pair of running shoes (
New Balance 510v2, I am still trying to figure out if I like them or not) just the day before and decided to use them for this run. There was nothing really wrong with them except that one of them came untied and I had to stop a mile away from finish line. I could have run a new 10k PR if it weren't for that but nevertheless I finished just slightly slower than the Queens 10k and even won the first prize in the 40-49 age group. My first first place award! I repeated the same feat 10 days later in the third installment of the Riverside Park Series. There is one upside to winning awards rather regularly: your name gets noticed a lot more often now, especially at NYCRUNS events. I think I mentioned that already in a previous blog posting. That became especially clear at the Brooklyn Bridge race which I will cover in a bit. Stay tuned.
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Focused!
Picture by Bob Cowin |
The next race I want to recap a bit more in detail was this year's
NYRR Team Championships. The New York Road Runners hold this event every year and it is open to members of local running clubs only. It's supposed to give us teams the opportunity to race each other. The women went first this year and the men followed an hour later on a 5 miles loop around Central Park. I actually planned on being on location to watch and cheer on the women but I wasn't able to get out of the house early enough. I arrived just in time to see the first woman cross the finish line, though. It is nice to see that a front of the middle of the pack runner like me struggles just as much as a world-class runner. The latter is just a lot faster but we all give everything we can. Oh, one more observation: puking after a race seems to be normal. One of the top-three female finishers made a pit stop on some grassy area, threw up for a while, and was then joined by a team mate of hers to comfort her. Then they chatted as if nothing happened. So, whenever you feel like throwing up, just pretend you ran your guts out and let it all out, literally.
The weather was perfect when the men lined up at the start. It was raining all morning long and the ladies had a little tough luck but we men were lucky. It was a rather smallish group of runners (less than 900) and we were not assigned to start corrals according to our predicted pace. If it weren't for all the NYRR branding you wouldn't have known it was the NYRR that organized this event. The course was a simple loop starting on 102nd St Traverse, going all the way south, back up on the East Drive, and ended a few yards away from the start. My strategy was pretty much to just run as fast as I could and keep it up and I was pretty successful with that. Within my team I ended up in third position which I am very proud of.
I think there are two dominant running teams here in NYC: the
New York Athletic Club (NYAC) and the
Westside Runners (WSX). The first is a very exclusive private club that takes in new members by invitation only, is extremely expensive, has a swanky building on Central Park South with overnight accommodations and dining facilities, and churns out Olympic medal winners. So, it is a quasi-given that these athletes rule most events, and that they rarely attend any of the NYCRUNS events. The WSX is open to everybody, dirt-cheap, and also has some extremely capable members. While I would love to run for a more competitive club like the WSX I am going to stick with the New York Flyers mostly because the average age of its members is around 40 years old and I don't feel like an old timer.
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| Rain does not discourage us. |
The other race I want to talk about it one of my favorites: the
Brooklyn Bridge 5k, aka Sgt. Keith A. Ferguson 5K Run. It was great fun again even though the weather just barely cooperated. It was the second race in the same weekend I ran the team challenge and it just stopped raining a bit after the start of the race. The wooden planks that cover at least half of the distance were a bit slippery and caution was needed not to fall and hurt yourself. I was surprised, though, how fast I went out and that I was able to hold a very good pace even though it was a bridge, i.e. up, then down, then up again, and finally down to the finish line. I assume the downslopes helped a lot to keep my pace up and the adrenaline made sure that I didn't slow down too much on the upslopes. Despite my new 5k PR I placed fifth in my age group which was a bit of a bummer but definitely added more motivation to keep on training and get the endurance up and upper! The race was spectacular but there was one thing that made it even better. While I was waiting for the award ceremony I hung out at the finish line to watch the runners come in. The race director was sitting there announcing each of the finisher over loud speakers as they come in and all of the sudden I heard him say: "Michael Hocke, how did it go?" Over the speakers. I looked and realized that he meant me and I gave my thumbs up. Then he just talked about me being a member of the New York Flyers etc. etc. I guess I earned my chops for real now and am officially a well known participant of NYCRUNS events. Even though I am not the person who wants to be the center of attention it sure gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling and I was validated for my efforts in running. I will make sure to volunteer as much as possible as well to keep my newly found status.
Running two race in two days was not such a great idea, though. My right knee flared up once more. Luckily a week of rest and some very easy running (
NYC Summer Streets is back!) fixed this but it definitely has something to do with my arthritis in my knees. I have top be careful when going down hills fast. That said, tonight is the sixth installment of the PPTC Al Goldstein Speed Series in Prospect Park. One nice long downslope just before the finish line. Will I go easy? Nah, I don't think so. Ice and rest will do wonders.
I will dedicate a separate blog entry for the
coached training class I am taking to prepare for my first half marathon that I want to run ready and hopefully injury-free. Stay tuned for that.
And fresh from the press: I was accepted to hand out finisher medals at this year's NYC marathon! This is exciting!
Keep on running!
