Percy Sutton Harlem 5K

Today was the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K, a race run by the NYRR, but not in their home stomping grounds of Central Park. I was my second chance at hitting my 2010 goal of running a sub 19 minute 5K.

Having just run a 19:06 in Maine, the goal seemed within reach, but I didn't know the Harlem course, so it was hard to predict what might happen.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning -- the weather has been brutal in NYC this summer, and this morning was a welcome break. I jogged the 2.3 miles up to the start where I met up with MC. The start area was really nice. We hung out in St. Nicholas Park until it was time to enter the corrals. There, we met up with DK, completing the Fearsome 3 (OK, I just made that up, but it's sure to catch on). We also saw JEF (no, not Jeff, J.E.F), one of my Flyer idols.

The pre-race announcements went on longer than usual, and I started to get antsy. Then, when the starter asked "do we have clearance on the roadway?!", the answer came back "no!". That was a first for me. The delay wound my springs up some more, and when the horn finally sounded, I took off like a lunatic. I flew by JEF (a sign of very bad judgement) in the first few hundred yards. I knew it wasn't right, but there was no stopping it.

After a half mile, we hit the one big uphill in the course, and it was a steep one. I hit mile one at the top of the hill in 6:10. I would have to pick it up from there, but there was only flat and downhill ahead.

Mile two took me 6:18, which surprised me a bit, since it was flat, and I didn't feel like I had slowed down. Then came a big downhill and the sprint to the finish. I did mile 3 in 5:59 -- it wasn't looking good for breaking 19 minutes.

In the end, I had a 19.05 -- a one second PR. It still blows my mind that on a completely different course, a different day, different... whatever, I race for 5K within a SECOND of my last time. How does that happen?

DK, MC and I jogged home together, and MC pointed out buildings in Harlem that he had been looking at. They looked really nice. Just a few minutes jog to Central Park, in what looked like an up and coming neighborhood.

When I got home and checked the official results, I saw that I was 3rd in my age group, and on the awards page, it listed me as 2nd (!). The reason appears to be that the fastest guy in my age group finished 2 overall, so they aren't giving him the age group award as well.

So, on one hand it's really exciting to place in an NYRR race for the first time, but at the same time, it's really humbling to look at this 2nd place overall finish. This is a 45 year old guy, running a 5K at a sub 5 minute/mile pace. That is crazy. His AG% is 92.5. So much for me claiming to be "fast for an old guy".

As for the sub 19 goal, the NYRR only has one more 5K on the calendar, the December 11 NYRR Holiday Run in Brooklyn. That's cutting it a little close...

Team Championships

Yesterday was the annual NYRR Team Championships race. It's a race I don't usually make, as it falls on a weekend when I'm out of town. This year however, we came back a few days early and I was able to run.

The event is limited to runners who are members of the local competitive clubs, and double points are awarded toward the club points standings. I've mentioned before on this blog the difference in the competition at points races vs non-points races, but this uberpointsrace is the toughest of them all.

In pretty much any other NYRR race I'm assigned to the first starting corral with the fastest runners, but in this race I was in the fourth corral. No doubt about it, when everybody shows up, there are a lot of fast runners in this town.

Although my PR for this distance (5 miles) was just 6 weeks old, I felt that I had a shot at it, as I've been getting faster, and the weather was a bit cooler than it had been in June.

The first mile of the course covered all of the rolling West Side Hills, and it was hard to judge how I was doing. I seemed to be passing a lot, which could be good or bad. I decided to assume good. Then fellow Flyer Crazy B came up from behind (?) and passed me. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, as I would have expected him to be way out in front by then. Was I going out too fast? Or was he starting cautiously?

I hit the mile one mark at 6:18, which felt like good news. That gave me a 12 second buffer on PR pace, with one of the toughest miles behind me.

I decided to hold effort or even ease off a bit, and see how the second, downhill mile would turn out. I came in at 6:24 -- slower, but still increasing the buffer to 18 seconds. My time slipped again for mile 3 to 6:30 (PR pace), and I was feeling tired. The relatively cool morning was starting to heat up, at least for me, and although I wasn't hurting much physically, my mental stamina was slipping.

I started making deals with myself to keep going. This is what I do when my fortitude starts to go. I felt an obligation to run my best for the team, but let's be reasonable -- I mean, just exactly how fast did I have to go? Surely, they couldn't expect much more than my fastest 5 miles ever? So, if I could hang on to the PR, that would do. No need to go crazy. Just don't use up the whole buffer you've built up.

Of course the whole exercise was absurd, because the Flyers only expectation was that I have a good time and hang out for the team photo, but the deal making was keeping me going so I went with it.

Amazingly, I got through the Cat Hill mile in 6:37 -- still ahead of PR pace, and with nothing but downhill to the finish. After a thousand Cat Hill repeats (give or take) with the 6AM group, Cat Hill is just not the obstacle it used to be.

I continued to conserve however, knowing that I would want to have something left for the finish. Because the men and women race separately in this event, there is a great cheering section at the end of the course, with each club yelling for their teammates. I went through the gauntlet feeling good, and finished strong (6:23 for mile 5).

That left me with a PR of 32:13 (6:26/mile), 10th place amongst the Flyer men -- the last scoring position in the open class.

Afterward, my family showed up, and we watched the women race and then enjoyed the Flyer picnic and team photo. Good times.

One footnote: Crazy B finished over a minute ahead of me, as I would expect. Apparently, he just wasn't going with my "strategy" of start fast and painfully, gradually slow down each mile ;-)