As the culminating event of Scotland Week in New York City, NYRR puts on the Scotland Run (sponsored by Scotland Tourism or something like that). This was my first time running it.
Bagpipes, lots of kilts...the weather even felt appropriately Scottish being overcast and chilly. It was great!
Here I am, all set to go! Well, after I have a subway ride up there!
I got to Central Park way early and chatted with running club teammates before checking my bag and then taking my (literally...I paced it on my Garmin) 1/2 mile hike to my starting "corral". It's in quotes because my number was 11xxx and they only had a roped off area up to 9xxx. But the corral marshalls sent anyone with a brown bib into that one, so it worked out. I think the national anthem was played by bagpipes...but I'm not positive since they were announced several times, and then I never really heard anything I could identify (too soft), and we were off.
Well...it took about 10 minutes before those of us in the back even started moving...it was about 13 minutes before I crossed the start line. We all had a good laugh as the finish was .2 up from the starting line (the main loop in CP being 6 miles), so we were all laughing and saying "WOW! Look at that finish time!!!" as we crossed the area the first time.
I started out strong...and I knew it was too fast, especially with hills coming up. Especially with HARLEM HILL coming up. I tried to slow down, but it didn't work as well as I would have liked. I stayed as strong as I could.
Here I am, I think at one of the inclines, hence the concentration.
Yes, I walked 99% of Harlem Hill, but I ran when I could.
I pushed through, and for a little while felt better...definitely used the downhills to try and work on the pace.
The one little ick thing was that you could see the finish further out than it looked, so it was easy to push too hard too fast. I really felt like I'd lefe everything on the course before the finish, but some of my FRNY teammates were cheering me on as I entered the chute. I was like "I'm dying!" and my friend AJ yelled "No you're not! You're right there! KICK!" so I kicked and left everything I had left in that last little stretch.
The result? A race PR of 1:15:09!
After I grabbed a bagel and a bottle of water and an "oat bar" thing from Scotland that was YUM!!! and headed to church. We were supposed to be shooting a video afterwards, but the sound was all off. One guy who goes to my church (and is definitely odd) was all "So how'd you do?" (I was still in running gear...though I'd taken off my shirt in favor of a different shirt, so I wasn't all sweaty and smelly) and when I said my time he was all "Oh. I think my best 10K was around 45 minutes. You need to get on a treadmill every night until you get your time down." I just gave him a look and said "Actually I'm very happy with my time, thanks." and walked away to a couple of friends who were waiting for me. Guess there are jerks everywhere.
But yeah...I am happy with it. I'd like to even my splits out a little more and teach myself to hold back at the beginning, but it's a learning process and I'm getting there!
~beth
GO! WISH Team GO! 
That's my laugh out loud moment for the day.
