Good start to the new year

NYCRUNS Spring Fling 10K finish (photo by NYCRUNS)

It's not really a new year anymore but new enough for this to be my second blog posting. I have been taking it rather easy over the last few months. I am still running and competing but I take a lot more rest days than I have in the past. It's mostly just because I am afraid I would just injure myself again and I'd rather take two days off here and there than being forced to take a week or two off. At this moment, for example, my right ankle is acting up. It was pretty bad the day after the Spring Fling 10K and it is still lingering a bit. So far I have been taking a couple days of absolutely no running (or exercising at all) and debating if I should do a leisure 4 to 6 miles later tonight. I am leaning towards the latter but I will make the final decision pretty much the second before I lace up my shoes.

Without any real training runs I shouldn't expect any improvements in my times and that's exactly what's happening. My 5K times are hovering around the 6:50 and 10K around 7:00 (I am rounding down, ok?) minutes per mile pace. Far away from my performances during the summer of 2014 but I am thinking that I really should go for distance at this point and not worry too much about speed. I really like the 10K distance but I want to make the half marathon my distance of this year. I have signed up (and plan on signing up) to quite a few this year: all the NYRR borough series runs, the NYCRUNS Queens Half and Verrazano Festival. Training for distance should improve my short distance times a bit as well.

A few recaps. I think the last two races deserve the most words. The Washington Heights 5K was pure fun and I thought I did pretty well. For some reason I really like hills in short runs and hills were aplenty this time. I think the downhill part speeds me up enough to get through the next uphill rather easily or at least all the uphills make me mentally and to a certain extent physically numb to the fact that more uphills are coming. Just like any good Riverside Park race. The first hill there is so steep that all the others don't matter too much. I barely feel them. It seems that I give a lot more on hilly courses than on flat ones. The first hill in Washington Heights is the same. Up, up, up... then down a bit. Up again, and down, and up. The good thing is that it ended on a downhill and then a flat stretch (it's an out and back course). There is one thing that the NYRR has to manage a lot better: the course is really crowded. The streets are very narrow and getting thousand of runners on this course creates a few bottlenecks, especially in the last half when the uphills are coming and people are getting tired. Too many people slow down and it is hard to keep the momentum going. Nevertheless, I did rather well and all the details can be found on Garmin Connect.

Spring Fling 10K start
(photo by NYCRUNS)

Then there was the NYCRUNS Spring Fling 10K last weekend where I finally won an age award again. I am still far off from what I used to be able to run (speed-wise; I know, I keep repeating myself) but I still managed to place 2nd in the 40-49 age group. This reminds me of the Shore Road 10K in August 2013 where I placed 2nd out of the blue as well, but no awards were given out at that time. It's always nice to participate in smaller races. I must say, though, it was a rather easy race. I know Roosevelt Island inside out and at any moment of the race I knew instinctively how much I already ran and how much I still had in front of me. Not once did I have to dig deep to keep going. Maybe I could have done more? If there is one thing that I still haven't figured out in over three years of running is how to pace myself correctly. I usually have still too much gas in the tank at the end or I crash and burn too early. Very rarely does everything come together where I can say that I ran a smart race. Maybe that's a skill I will learn eventually when I race much longer distances more frequently. For anybody who is interested, here are the details on how it was.

The next race I am signed up for is the Spring Classic 10K but I may be skipping it because my ankle is still bothersome and I have my very first destination race, the Cherry Blossom 10M, the following weekend. I really don't want to spoil that. Car is reserved, hotel room is booked, I even signed up my boy to the children's race there. I am really looking forward to this experience and in that spirit I will most likely skip the 10K.

I will most likely be back with a recap of the 10 miler. Until then, keep on running!