Run for Central Park: Year Deux

Last year, the Run for Central Park 4M race was the first race I ran with Team for Kids.  This year, the race wasn't a TFK team race but I felt that it was definitely a race that I wanted to be a part of, mainly because the money goes to the CPC, which continues to keep Central Park one of the most beautiful aspects of New York City.

I really needed to run more than 4M last Saturday so I set out early to run 4-5 miles before the race began.  I got to the park about 8 with the intention of running twice around the bridle path and then the mile or so to the start line.  Although I did have enough time to do a full 5 miles, I found that by mile 3, I was already way too hot and tired and figured that my best bet was to finish up 4 miles with enough time to rehydrate and stretch before the 4M race began at 9am.

NYRR now has my pace as a 9:43 so I was with the light blue runners... although I knew for a fact that there was no way I was pulling under a 10 minute pace for this race.  NYRR is really good with making sure that there is water at every mile and they even had some "cooling stations" which consisted of someone holding a giant hose over the course so that everyone got a little bit wet.  Even with the water, I still found myself extremely overheated, having trouble breathing, and feeling like my legs had cement blocks attached to them.

It felt great to finish because I knew I had 8 miles under my belt for the day.  Tomorrow I've got the Queens Half-Marathon, the third in the Grand-Prix Series.  I'll be meeting up with some TFKers at 6am tomorrow morning to chat, warm-up, and stretch.  I spoke to Coach Frank at Wednesday's training run and we spoke about how I really need to approach this race as a training run as opposed to a race.  It's early in the training, there's a heat advisory out for NYC all day tomorrow, and a faster time is definitely not worth getting sick and/or hurt over.  I was advised to really pay attention to my body and allow myself whatever I need, even if it means walking at certain points.

I'm glad we spoke as I was nervous feeling that I'm not really all that prepared to run a half-marathon in the morning.  The run starts at 7am so hopefully it won't be all that hot yet (wishful thinking, I'm sure) and hopefully I can pull through and have a good run, even if it isn't my best race.