Fun Run

I got into JFK from Sydney on Friday night, so my plans for the race on Saturday were to just use it as a reason to get out of bed and get moving.

I called a friend from the cab, and he told me that the race had been changed to a "Fun Run", due to weather. It didn't seem that bad out, but I guess they were worried about rain turning to ice.

The race had been scheduled as a club points race, which would mean that there would be a big turnout from my club mates, and that in general, the fastest folks would be out. As a fun run, however, there would be no chips, clocks, awards or scoring of any kind. When this happened last year, I didn't go out, but later heard that it was a really fun event, with just a few people running in a snow covered park. I was pissed that I didn't go out that day, so I wasn't going to miss this one. And let's face it -- a fun run was all that I was up for anyway.

When I got out to the race, I was clear that this was not going to be the same sort of event as last year's fun run. That time, the weather had in fact been really intimidating. This time, the forecast was wrong. There was no new snow -- I think the concern had been about ice, which didn't materialize. It was actually a nice morning for a run, and a good number of people showed up.

I wandered in late -- hey, why show up early for a fun run? When I got there I found the starting area was pretty full. There were no pace markers, so it was even more of a free-for-all than usual. The front section had metal gates, and hopping those to push my way in didn't seem in the spirit of a fun run, so I just entered at the back and moved up as much as I could. I could see that it was going to be a slow start, but I reminded myself that I wasn't trying to break any records. Geez, just relax. It's a FUN RUN dammit!

After the start, it was really slow. I was actually walking a couple of times on the 102nd transverse (itsafunrun,itsafunrun,itsafunrun). After we made the first turn turn, it opened up and I was able to get up to pace. Although my training had dropped off (stopped) during my last week abroad, the upside was that my legs felt fresh and I was loving the feeling of running.

For the fun run, the NYRR had not put up the usual big mile marker signs, and had instead just drawn markers on the road. I missed the first marker, so I don't know my first mile time, but I hit the two mile point at 14:55. My guess it that this broke down to something like 8:05 and 6:50. The third mile (cat hill) was at 7:05, and the final mile was 6:37. Besides the first mile, these were real race pace times for me, so I didn't really take it as easy as I thought I would.

Hey, it was a Fun Run right? And what's fun for me is going out and running as fast as I can. May we all have many fun runs ahead!