Wow! I did the Central Park Conservancy Run for Central Park 4-Miler in Central Park this morning, and I did it fast! It was going to be a scorcher today but for some reason it didn’t feel as bad as I was expecting. It was 82 degrees with 53% humidity at the start. I say “Wow!” because I was not expecting wow. It was almost like Opposite Day, my results compared to my expectations . . .
I worked until 3am-ish last night/this morning, and only ended up with about 3.5 hours of sleep. While I did get pasta last night around dinnertime, I wasn’t eating that well and I was on my feel for hours at a time the last two days. I took a short jog to get my number but I was feeling dead. I figured, Maybe I’ll do this run in 32 minutes (an 8-minute mile) … I won’t push myself … I have nothing to prove here … this is just to run a marathon qualifying race …
Garmin Unofficial Results:
Well, well. I started off at a decent pace but realized I had just a little bit of speed with me. I figured it would leave or just taper and it did a bit, but not too much. In fact, my first two miles according to my Garmin were 6:40 then 6:46, which are quite excellent miles for me right now! I then ran a 7:09 through the hilliest part of this race, then didn’t keep track of my 4th mile, which ended up on my Garmin as a 6:33! (I had no idea I was that fast for that mile!)
The official results said I finished in 27:22. That’s a 6:50. My Garmin put me a little faster, but no worries: This is much, much, much faster than I thought I would run today. To think I would run 8:00s and then I go and run 6:50s!! And in this weather!!! With so little sleep!!!!
These 6:50s are a) a sign that I am improving in my running, b) a sign I’m getting faster, c) signal that I don’t need to worry so much about missing a couple of runs because of difficult work scheduling, d) make me happy and proud, and e) yea. I felt my left ankle a bit around the first mile marker but it never gave out. And the side of my left knee was a little sensitive, but more after I hit the gym for abs, glutes, arms, back, pecs, quads, calves, then abs again. I’m going to try to get a few hours of sleep now in order to catch up. But this is a nice achievement after a hellish couple of days of work. Woohoo!