Prospect Park, Brooklyn
28 January 2012
58:50.02 Finish, 10k PR
This was an awesome race, and not just because I ran it faster than expected.
I’ve been looking for opportunity to run races that are NOT organized and hosted by New York Road Runners, so I’ve been paying attention to races posted on NYCRuns.com. Steve Lastoe, who runs the site, also directed this race, which is part of a three-race series called the Freeze & Fuhgeddaboudit Series. There were some problems with timing, mainly that the NYCRuns brand new timing system didn’t work, so the race was turned into a “fun run” at the start line. No matter, because I was still going to race it! Most everyone was running with GPS anyway and the small number of runners meant the finish line clock was nearly dead on.
I’ve had some very good short training runs lately, but I didn’t expect to run as well at this race–or come close to a PR–because of the hill in the northern end of the park. It kicks my butt every time I run there. It helped that the start was directly at the bottom of the hill and I was fresh for the climb during the first loop. With the exception of the minutes I was climbing the second time, I felt good the rest of the race. I made a point to not look at my Garmin and to go more by effort. I’m wondering now, of course, if I could have pushed it even a little more.
After the race we were treated to hot chocolate that was DELICIOUS. I really mean it was DELICIOUS. I think I might start having hot chocolate after every cold weather run.
**A side note: This was my first race outing as a member of the Prospect Park Track Club. Maybe that made me faster.
I don’t know where this delicious chocolate-y goodness came from, but I wish I did.
We got mugs for this race!
I met this really nice guy while waiting for the bus and helped him get to the park for his first-ever race. He finished in a very respectable 1:01!