Do You Deliver?

Today was the Race to Deliver, a 4 miler in Central Park. I have been looking forward to this one, as a change of pace (literally) from marathon training. As I ramped up the milage for the NYC marathon, I cut back (cut out) speed work and short races almost entirely. Since the marathon, I've gotten in 2 speed sessions with the morning group, but today was the first short race.

On Thursday, I had an experience that had me worried that my speed may have slipped last few months. A new tradition has started in the morning group that each runner is expected to "run their age" on their birthday. That is, when I turn 49 in January, I will be sent out to run the six mile loop in 49 minutes. Other runners in the group often go along with the birthday boy/girl to keep them company. Well, 49 minutes I can do, but this week SJ was turning 39. That's a 6:30 pace. Ouch.

Using my usual questionable judgement, I volunteered to keep him company for the first mile or so. I kept up with him from 72nd street to 100th, but then, exhausted, I sent him on his way with my best wishes. I stopped to catch my breath and wait for the next runners to come, and before long AW and JN came along. I tried, but I was too wasted to keep up with them, so I stopped again and waited for the next folks. I finally fell into a group that I could keep up with, but it was hard. All ambition had been sucked out of me. In the end, I cut the loop short, using the excuse that I wanted to see SJ at the finish. He made it, of course, no problem.

I was wiped out for the rest of the day. Work was hard. Staying awake after dinner was hard. I gave up and turned in early. I was shocked that I couldn't recover more quickly from just a little over a mile of hard running. It did not bode well for this weekend's race.

I figured that the race would would be a good test of where my speed is now, so that I could set my goals going forward. As it turned out, the news was good. I ran a brisk, but not crazy first mile, and was very happy to see that it was under PR pace. As it turned out, it was my slowest mile. Here are the splits:

Mile 1: 6:33

Mile 2: 6:25

Mile 3: 6:32

Mile 4: 6:13

Official time: 25:45 (0:31 PR) 6:26/mile

130th overall, out of 4757 finishers, 9th place age group finish.

Better yet, because I wasn't committed to going for a PR, I wasn't pushing like a maniac. I enjoyed some fun banter with other runners and spectators, and generally had a great time. Here's to many more races like this one!