tall buildings, bad reception

And once again, I did the Wall Street Run with my company (which has become our “in lieu of the Corporate Challenge.”) We had 9 signed up…3 (including me) runners, 6 walkers. And actually…as the forecast seemed to change dramatically on Tuesday morning from about 60 degrees and 30% chance of rain to not even 50 degrees and definite rain. So knowing my company’s track record w/ inclement weather, I was expecting quite a few to bail… but considering I’ve done 2 half-marathons in the rain, you can bet I wouldn’t!

So after work, I did the same thing I did last year-2 mile warmup down the West Side Highway-more direct than taking the subway and a good way to get a warmup in. It was only raining lightly and actually felt nice!! And I was afraid I would be underdressed (not expecting the weather)…I had on a running skirt and a singlet under a jacket and actually felt warm-so I had a feeling I’d be OK come race time.

Arrived downtown, stashed my bag and headed for the start…oh boy. NO pace per mile markers. This was a recipe for disaster. I found my other 2 colleagues that were running and lined up with them…decent starting position. Was a little chilly waiting for the start (shoulda brought a throwaway shirt!) and not surprisingly, the start was delayed a few minutes waiting for the west side hwy to be closed off, but finally we got going.

So I was hoping to better last year’s time (22:51, 7:36 pace) in order to get a better pace for corral placement :-p Had the Garmin on but wasn’t really referring to it during the race as anything but a watch. Anyway, the same obstacles were there…potholes, puddles, people who did not line up correctly…however, I hit mile 1 in 7:25 and thought RIGHT ON TRACK!!

And mile 2 seemed to have more issues…more turns, more bottlenecks…especially on one street where half of it was closed off. But I still felt I put up a good effort through this mile…which was why I was surprised that mile 2 was 8:30…what the!! I may have slowed down, but not that much…

Well obviously I had my work cut out for me in mile 3!! Just told myself to suck it up, it’s only a mile to go…run hard, hard, hard!! Made the final turn onto the West Side Esplanade by the Hudson River and not too much later…could see the finish line in the distance and kicked it in. Mile 3 was 7:16, for a total time of 23:11.

Saw Uptown Girl (who had blasted past me around mile 2) after the race and we compared Garmin readings…hers had about 3.4 miles, however, my Mr. Garmin had 2.8!! So who knew what was right…and everyone I talked to after the race seemed to agree. (I do definitely think mile 2 was long…don’t know which was the short mile though, 1 or 3.) I was cold and tired, so unlike last year, I didn’t feel up for post-race festivities-though I did stop by Urban Athletics for a free Corona and 15% off a Sugoi top (and I thought leaving the credit card at home would stop me from shopping. ha!)

When I exported my Garmin data at home…I had to laugh. Apparently, no one, nothing, knew what the distance of this course was!!

Garmin Training Center said 2.84 miles

SportTracks said 3.12 miles

MotionBased said 3.6 miles (yeah right-like I really did sub-7′s)

And if you look at the map…obviously the tall buildings really threw off the GPS signal (hell…there were some places where it said I was going sub-4 pace…in my dreams!!)

So basically, the moral of the story is, I will never really know what I actually ran yesterday…and just chalk it up as a tempo workout, and defending my title of being first in my company

And save the PR attempts for certified courses!

And like most men…Mr. Garmin isn’t always right :-p

you can always go downtown

(post title stolen from those Visa TV spots)

Anyway, last nite was my first race outside Central Park in awhile!! As I had mentioned before, our company was shut out of this year’s Corporate Challenge, so I suggested we do the Wall Street Run instead. Figure it’d be a nice change too…away from the Central Park crowds, and no team t-shirts this year (so we could wear whatever we wanted instead of heavy cotton!)

We had 13 people sign up, most of them planning on walking the thing. So when the company captain said that we should probably get there by 6:10 for a 6:30 start, I knew I had to do my own thing And my office is right near the West Side Highway bike path, and it’s 2 miles to the race start…and I needed to do a warm-up anyway, so I just ran down there after work-much more direct than taking the subway too!! I had told my colleagues that I’d be by the 7 minute pace marker…but I saw people standing nearby who didn’t look like they’d be running hard, not to mention someone saying “Runners are up in the front…joggers are around here…walkers are the rest.” Decision: save myself and move up. So I did. And we waited for the race start…was delayed a few minutes since they couldn’t seem to close off West Street…finally we were off!!

Took Mile 1 hard…was a tiny bit hilly, but still nothing compared to Central Park…ran past ground zero and the WTC PATH terminal. I was pleased to see my mile 1 split of 7:34-this could be great if I can keep it up…

Mile 2 was through more twisty, turny, potholed streets…was still running pretty hard but trying to keep an eye on the road too, make sure I didn’t wipe out!! That mile was 7:36…not bad, not bad!! Would have been happy with breaking 24, but looks like sub-23 may be on the horizon…

Mile 3-around the very bottom of Manhattan, and back up towards the World Financial Center. I tried to pick up the pace a little here. The last little bit of the race is on the West Side Esplanade by the Hudson River…nice little final straightaway. Though I was surprised when I looked down at my watch when the split read about 6:30 and I couldn’t see the finish line…anyway, I gave it all I had and this mile was 7:40. (So I think this mile was a tiny bit long…)

Final time-22:50, 7:36 pace (assuming it was truly 3 miles…I don’t think it was a true 5K, but definitely longer than 3 miles.) And of the 13 that signed up from my company…only 3, including me had our times captured by the chip…and once again, I was first

Afterwards, there was a nice little “after-party” in the World Financial Center…caught up with a few Flyer teammates…before heading to Urban Athletics to drop some more $$ on running clothes on sale (and knocking back a Corona-gotta love them for serving good stuff.) Then I headed to an after-party with some Rez Dogs and Harriers…at Chevy’s right across from the financial center. It was for Merrill Lynch, but I got in because…well, a sweet smile to the doorman works every time I didn’t plan to stay too long…but time flies when you’re knocking back beers like water, before I knew it, it was past midnight!! Despite this morning’s hangover, it was fun…I really needed a good night like that.

And as for the race, I’m definitely happy with it-was nice to get out of Central Park, and you know what, short races really aren’t as bad as I remember-as long as they don’t have monster hills and are outside of Central Park!! Maybe I was burned out a little bit by having most of my racing there…so some NJ races may be on the horizon later this year. We shall see!

now playing: “number 1″ ~ goldfrapp