Tag Archives: NYRR

This morning I woke up and headed to Central Park for my very first race this year: The NYRR Colon Cancer Challenge 15K. I have a much lighter race schedule this year than last in order to try to stay healthy for the NYC Marathon this fall. I was excited for this one for several reasons 1) it was my first 2013 race 2) I ran with my sister and 3) this was the first time I ran a 15K distance (9.3 miles). Plus, the weather was beautiful and sunny.

Central Park on race morning

There were three events happening this morning: 1.7 mile walk, 4 mile run and 9.3 mile run plus a festival to increase awareness of colorecta cancer. They even had a giant inflatable colon at the festival that you could walk though. I really liked that this race was in support of this organization and helps to increase awareness.

Colon Cancer race shirt and bib

The race:

The race itself was held in Central Park and was almost two full loops of the lower loop (excluded the Harlem hills.. to my relief!). I typically am not the biggest ran of races where you repeat loops but today it didn’t bother me for some reason, although I would have preferred a route where this didn’t happen. I have also never ran a 15K distance before so this was different for me, I’m not used to stopping my runs mid-mile!

At the race start there was a bit of a bottleneck before it opened up, which is always annoying for a runner. We were basically fast walking at the start but once everyone spread out there was plenty of room on the rest of the course so it wasn’t a huge deal. There seemed to also be a good deal of people cheering on the sides which I always appreciate a bunch.

Approaching the finishline in pink and blue As you can tell, I’m obsessed with my blue capris, I promise I wash them in between each wear!

The hills of Central Park came out to play for sure. I haven’t run there in a while so I didn’t even think of it, but the rolling hills of the West side are, in my opinion, are always the toughest. My legs are certainly going to be sort tomorrow, the quads got a workout!

Luckily, I felt pretty good for most of the race and my breathing did settle in. My sister ran at a nice pace which pushed me to pick up mine to more than I have been running, plus I wanted someone to chat with during the race so we stayed together for most of it. I didn’t have any foot pain (yay) but my knee was a little tweaky (is that even a word?). Still, its not awful and the French toast bagels at the finishline made everything all better

I ended up finishing 9.3 miles in 1:25 (9:11/mile) which I’m happy with since I did it without too many body parts hurting me.

Recovering after the finish.

Pros:

• Beautiful weather: sunshine, nice temperature
• The distance. I never ran a 15K before but its a nice distance below a half marathon. Since I’ll be running the Nike Half in a two weeks, this was a nice training run
• Besides the bottleneck at the start, the runners spread out quickly for the rest of the race.
• French toast bagels at the race finish

Cons:

• The double loop course wasn’t my favorite but it wasn’t horrible either.
• Short bottleneck at the start of the race.

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Lastly, the winner of the Fit Four Gloves giveaway is….

Jill Snethen

Congratulations Jill! Contact me at runlikeagrlmegan [at] gmail [dot] com within 48 hours so I can get these gloves to you!

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Also, I *may* be switching my blog over to self-hosted this week so if you get error messages or things look funny, that’s why. I’ll tweet updates if that happens!

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Did you run this weekend? How did you do?
What is your next upcoming race?