And here's my race report!
It should really be no surprise that I was mega-excited about the "jingle bells for your shoes" part of the description of what your entry fee got you. After all, when I was just a little thing (like 12-18 months or so), I had to wear a corrective shoe for a while - which was basically a right shoe on my left foot (or left on my right? I always forget which foot turned out too far.). So to help my mom tell the difference and make sure the correct shoe was on the correct foot, my doctor helpfully attached bells to the corrective shoe. Well, that lasted until we got home at which point my mom called my dad and asked him to please get some colored laces on his way home so THAT could be the differentiating factor. Apparently I spent the entire ride home bouncing my foot up and down to hear the bells. Hee!
At any rate, this was a 4 mile run in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I've gone here on my own for training runs before and did my Turkey Trot in this park, so I'm not unfamiliar with the roads there. BIG advantage was it's in my borough and on my subway line, so I didn't have to get up as early as before. Woo!
For this run I was given a pink bib rather than the further back purple. Definitely a feature of there being fewer people who signed up and the title "jog" attracting more people so that the corrals were a bit redistributed. I'm sure I'll be back in my purple corral next week, never fear. Got lined up, barely heard the national anthem as the girl was either very soft or held the mic very far from her mouth, and we were off.
We started about mid-way into the park on the road that cuts across its middle. I knew the very first part and very last part were the same path, just in reverse, and it did occur to me that coming back wasn't going to be fun since we started out downhill. More on that later.
The big advantage of this starting point was I didn't realize we were basically on "the Beast" as soon as we came down the start/finish bit. For those unfamiliar with my terminology, "the Beast" is the primary hill in Prospect Park if you go to the right (we won't even go into the almost constant hill you're climbing if you go to the left), and it is brutal. It's one of those that is seemingly benignly gradual, but it's lethal in its length. Then there's a little bit of "Good I'm done" but nope...a slightly steeper climb awaits you before you're "done" and can go down for a little while. The good thing about not realizing that's where I was until I was most of the way up it is that I was able to run most of it. The bad thing about that is I wasn't really pacing myself for the hill and so I did pay for it with my legs a little later in the run. Still, I felt good about starting so strong.
I continued around the loop of the park with little to note, good or bad. I did go to a 3:30/1:30 run/walk ratio today. My legs have been very fatigued all week (girl stuff - UGH!), and the 4:1 just hasn't been feeling great, so I opted to split the difference so to speak. This ratio seemed to work well.
Overall I felt like I was able to keep up a pretty steady pace, and my garmin data bears that out. The run section that was all downhill has a pace of 10 and change minute mile, the times that I did walk towards the end has a 12 and change minute mile, and most of the other run segments were in the 11 and change minute mile range.
Per the NYRR data, my overall average was 11:56 and my chip time was 47:45.
I'll take it! Given how my legs felt all week, I just wanted to finish in less time than I did the 5 miles, and I did that by almost 11 minutes, so woo! Like I said, pretty much a consistent pace!
All in all it was a good time. And yes, I'll probably do it again next year!
~beth
to all.
for the race report
M last night 
the end of the year is sure busy!
I'm happy to report that I got in 8 miles! My quads were screaming and my right knee felt a little wonky, but otherwise okay. Stretched afterwards, came home, showered and spent the evening on the couch catching up on shows on the Tivo. Next weekend I will go for the 10 miler!
because I had to test them out but plan to give the rest away. I'm probably going to make another batch to give away since they were so easy! My bib number is 7548 - I've heard that the link for the waivers was released prematurely so if anything changes, I'll repost my bib!
