Fastest Mile

Just crossed the
finish line
Photo by Marathonfoto

I'm back! I dared to put my foot to the test and ran the Fifth Avenue Mile last Saturday. It felt so good to line up with other runners and just give all you can (and try to beat as many of the the other runners as you can.) The Fifth Avenue Mile is a fun event because it was just about running one mile as fast as you can. The start line was on 80th Street, just south of the Met, and the finish line was at the south east corner of Central Park on 60th Street and 5th Avenue. Since it is such a short race we runners were divided into heats by age and gender. I was in heat 10, male runners 40-49 years of age, 677 runners in total. I read a few pieces about strategy and tactics on how to run this but in the end it was just all about go out and run as fast as you possibly can. The only thing to watch out for is probably to not go out sprint-style. Just go out fast and get faster as you go until you collapse on the finish line. The advantage of this course is that the second to last quarter mile is on a downslope and the last one is flat, i.e. there was a lot of opportunity to really ramp it up in the last half of the race. A mile can be extremely long in some races but it was very short in this one. I finished in 5:45 minutes which placed me 902nd out of 5610 finishers, 93rd out of 401 in my age group, and 5th for my team. I think I could have been a tad faster but I wasn't in tip-top shape because I haven't really run for almost four weeks. Considering my injury I was surprised how much I had in me, though. I think I am ready for the Bronx 10 Mile in two weeks.

The other thing I did running related was volunteering for the first NYRCUNS Queens Half Marathon in Flushing Meadow-Corona Park. It was a great event, as always, and I was course marshal at mile 10. The main reasons why I signed up for this were that a) I really like what NYCRUNS is doing, b) I wanted to support them for their very first half marathon in Queens, and c) we got double race credit ($50), an official NYCRUNS race management tech-shirt, a Queens Half tech-shirt, and bagels to bring home. Until today I do not know why so few people want to volunteer for them while the NYRR gets all the volunteers it needs. Sure, it is a requirement to get guaranteed entry in the NYC marathon but why are there so few that would do the same for race credit (free racing!) and just a good time all around? Anyway, it was a great time.

I will give my toe (and my hip which suffered a bit from my limping) another week of rest before I start with doing a few slow and easy runs to prep me for the 10 miles I will run on the 28th in the Bronx. Until then, keep on running!