Dare to Dream?

On Thursday, I ran a cross-country 2x2 mile relay in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. For years, I've been wanting to run one of the summer 5Ks that the VCTC puts on there. It was my 6AM training partner JH that finally got me there. He wanted a partner for the relay, and we made a natural team.

After we signed up we looked at our bibs, and tried to decipher the "M91" that was written on them. Finally, we figured out that 91 was our combined ages. Yikes.

I went first, not really knowing what to expect. It was my first off road race. I was told that there was only one hill, and my leg was only 2 miles, so how hard could it be?

Well, the hill was a country hill, not a wave in the road like I'm familiar with. On the way up, my quads were burning but I passed three people -- one guy about my age, and the two lead women. On the way down, they all passed me back. It was so steep going down, that I thought I was going to go head over heels at any moment. At the end of my leg, I felt like I was finishing strong, and I really liked the "high five" that I gave JH to send him on his way -- it was much more satisfying than an awkward baton pass. That's the way they roll in the Bronx.

JH ran well, and finished with an impressive kick. It was great to see him come in.

Flyers SS and RG (above) took second in the over 100 combined age group. The winning team had a combined age of 32. I guess there was no post race beer for them...

Today was the Dash and Splash 10K, which I targeted as an early attempt at my 2010 goal -- weather permitting. Well, weather was definitely NOT permitting. After the race, my iPhone told me it was 80 degrees. At mile 4, it seemed like 90.

Still, I put out a "good effort" and finished with a 6:40/mile pace. Since the weather scared away a lot of the faster (sissy) runners, I placed higher than usual. When I checked the results, I was 4th in my age group, but FA emailed me saying that the awards page had me at 3rd. I checked again, and saw that indeed I was the 3rd runner listed, but for some reason the fastest guy was labeled as 2nd place, pushing the rest of us back one place. There was no 1st place runner listed.

So did I place 3rd, and win my first ever age group award? We'll have to wait and see. Stay tuned, to find out!