Oops! Part II: The Solo Run

Just got back from my 16 mile run, which actually turned out to be 16 miles, surprisingly enough. The big problem when I would train alone, as was the case for my first two marathons (4:54 and 4:40), was actually doing the long runs. Even when I would summon the initiative to leave the house and hit the road, I would often curtail the duration of the run. But I found a way to stay motivated and do the whole thing, and here's how it went...

I live at 103rd & Lexington, so I just walked over to 102 and the Park Drive on the east side and stretched near the ball fields and got going. I noted the time of day, 2:14 (2/14 is Valentine's Day which is the mnemonic I used to remember), and started my running watch as well. I planned on doing two 6 mile loops and maybe a 4 mile loop, or maybe just a couple of reservoir loops (only 3.14 miles, see I was already thinking how I could make it shorter).

The next decision to make was which direction to run. My first instinct was to go the same way the team went, clockwise, but I decided that since I need work on hills it would be a good idea to run the other way. Running counter clockwise brings the two nastiest hills in Central Park, Harlem Hill and Cat Hill into play (you run down them the other direction). So I was going to make things a lot harder on myself on purpose. Train hard, race easy, that's what Coach Alem always says! The temperature was a balmy 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Off I went, and again my goal was to duplicate my goal pace for the first 16 of the marathon, which will be 7:40. I did the first 6 miles in 46:01.53, which is 1.53 seconds off the total target time and less than a half second off the pace.

The second 6 miles was much slower, thanks to a couple of lengthy water stops. I stopped at the fountain at the SW corner of The Sheep Meadow, where an elderly Japanese gentleman was taking his own sweet time enjoying our fine public water. He seemed to be a tourist and I am not one to bother our visitors from foreign lands, so I let him enjoy our tasty New York City waters, fresh from the Catskill Mountains, and waited patiently until he was finished.

I stopped for water again on the east side by the boathouse and had a hard time finding the water fountain, which I knew was there (somewhere), but was hard to see (it was in plain sight). So that cost me a minute or so. And then there was a stretch where I kind of just lost concentration for a bit and slowed down, no excuse for that but it happens.

Ok so my second loop time was much worse, 52:18, an 8:43 pace. During one of the many daydreaming moments on that leisurely loop I actually came up with a good plan for the last 4, so at least something was accomplished. Being something of a masochist (as all runners are to varying degrees) I decided that another trek up Harlem Hill would be a grand idea. Of course the math would not work out if I ran up to 103rd, but before I dismissed that idea I calculated that I could do 4 if I stopped by 84th Street rather than running back up to 102. And that would have the added bonus of having me finish near Jamba Juice on 86th & Lexington, which is where I usually go to get a recovery drink after a long run. I congratulated myself on my brilliance and only then realized I was running close to a 9 minute pace and woke up from my trance.

So for the 3rd and final loop I decided to speed up since I had dug myself a hole on Loop 2. And then this guy had the audacity to try and pass me, which doesn't happen to often when your'e doing 7:40's in the park when there's no race in progress. So I decided I was going to let him stay in front of me, but not get too far, and then I was going to take him out on Harlem Hill.

So I had him in my sights as we were approaching the second big incline, the super long one that doesn't end until it reaches the top. That's when I decided to make my move. There were also two women that we had come upon at that point that were moving pretty briskly also. He passed them going slightly faster than they were and was 15 feet in front of them when I kicked it into high gear. I took off my hat and started flying up the hill, not quite as fast as I could run, but pretty close. I was breathing very heavily, not as bad as during the 1 miler yesterday, but we were getting pretty close to maximum effort level. I maintained the pace up to the pinnacle, turned around, and saw that he was a good 100 feet behind me.

I reached the 1 mile mark (102 on the west side) and noted the time 8:30. I was a bit surprised when I saw that, because I was motoring up Harlem Hill, at least in terms of effort expended, so I was expecting something faster. But then I just chalked it up to the hill and it made me realize that big hills like that one really slow down your time considerably. After making that realization I started feeling a lot better about last week's time, which was a minute off the target pace for the whole run. But here I had just done 1 mile up an awful hill as fast as I could go essentially, and lost 50 seconds to the pace. So overall I considered this a helpful piece of information to have.

I got to 84th street without incident, in 30:37.23, or 7:39.03 pace. So as Meatloaf says, "Two out of Three Ain't Bad." I hit the pace within 1 second per mile for the first 6 and the last 4, and helped promote tourism and good international relations while on the 2nd 6 miles. And I gave myself another much needed incline workout, tangling with Harlem Hill and Cat Hill 3 times apiece.

There will be a third installment in the "Oops!" miniseries of blog posts (today was an eventful day), which will include a video from Grete's Gallop, which I will post later. Even though I missed the race I managed to make it over there and spoke with some of the TFK'ers who were hanging around after the race had ended. Coming soon...