Working for the weekend

Oh faithful readers, you know I am coming off about 10 days of killer running. It comes as no surprise when I headed out for my 14 miles of fun yesterday that I was tired. So tired in fact, I cut my run short to 12.7 miles. I know, a real slice off the milage. No worries though, there was brunch to be had.

I am happy to say I finished Feb. with 195.2 miles. If it had been a normal month with a normal amount of days, I would have hit 200. Ok, if I hadn't chopped a few miles here and there I would have hit 200.

Moving on!

Today was the Coogan's 5k up in Washington Heights. People have this idea that NYC is flat. People who have this idea have never bean above 96th st., I'm sure of it. So yes, this 5k has a few hills along the way. My mom was slated to do this race as her first 5k. This was not to be however, as she twisted her ankle a few weeks and sidelined for today's race. I know she's bummed out this, Loren and I are as well. She'll been working hard! I have no doubt once she's all better, she'll be back on the horse.

On to the race...

It was a bit chilly this morning. The weather was calling for all sorta of wintery stuff that just didn't happen. We got some flurries which was nice. In years past, this course has been an out and back with a nasty little turn around. This year it was changed to go through Ft. Tyron park, home of the cloisters, which was a huge improvement.

Front Runners had 99 people out there today! A Great showing! Loren came through first, followed by  uptown running pal, Rachel, hitting a sub 7 pace. Soon, she will be too fast for me to run with.

But enough about everyone else, this is my blog. There's a big hill right before mile 1 that I didn't hit all out but benefitted from the downhill on the other side. Once I got to the mile market, I hit my watch. I hit STOP on my watch and not SPLIT because sometimes I am a moron and forget how a watch I've had for 2 years works. Oh well. All by feel now. I started it again having no idea how much time I lost. I hit split a mile 2 even though I knew it was wrong. So now I have that hill to go up again, this time I'm not holding back since I know there's not much more than a mile to go and some nice downhill. 

I get to mile 3 and manage to hit split this time 7:24. Cool, I think I'm close to PRing but really not sure. Ran the last .1 in 38 seconds. 

When I started this morning, my legs felt heavy. As I said, I've had some long and hard miles lately so I'm tired. Next week is  a cut back week and I am happy about that.

I had to wait until the official results were posted to see my final time: 23:17. A PR at 7:30 pace. It's been my goal to go under 23 minutes for some time now. I knew today wasn't the day with how I felt and the course. I am really happy about the PR however. Maybe some day when I'm not training for a marathon I'll actually train for these short things.

So let's see, this year I've done 4 races, I've PR in all of them. Not a bad start! Of course there's only 1 race that I really care about PRing and that will be in 2 months.