Tag: 5km

Nassau Run Series Part 1 – Old Bethpage 5km

Posted on by Anthony

Instead of saturating my schedule with New York Road Runner races this season like most NYC runners, I have opted to do some events out east, mainly in Nassau County of Long Island. The Old Bethpage Village Restoration 5km is part of the Nassau Run Series. It is the first race of a four race series that leads up to the Long Island Marathon weekend in early May.

Due to the excessive amount of snow and challenging running conditions, my winter training has been more about getting workouts done than running high mileage. However, my low mileage these past couple of months mainly stems to shifting my focus towards cycling.

The race begins at 9am.
Actually, it was 8:58am according to my Garmin 610.

Sarah and I did our warmup, previewing the entire course and then some. We both almost slipped on some ice, which would have been a nightmare.

Anyway, I was expecting this course to be flat. Nope! In mile 1 and mile 3, there was this 60 foot climb.

Once the gun went off, it was a mad dash. Go figure. It felt like a 400m repeat before I it settled in. We hit the first hill and I was in 3rd. By the top of the hill, I had slotted myself in 2nd, where I remained for the rest of the race. After the hill, it was all flat until the second half of the course where we climbed back towards the base of the first hill to get back where we started (start and finish lines were the same).

My splits were consistent. Here’s what my Garmin caught:
1k – 3:34
2k – 3:35
3k – 3:32
4k – 3:37
5k – 3:35
= 17:53
Official time was also 17:53! Thank you Garmin for being so accurate!!

My teammate Sarah finished 4th overall and first female. She totally killed it! We did a long warm down, totaling our mileage at just under 10 for the day.

This was my first race of 2014 and it matched my 5k effort at my 2013 Coogan’s 5k result. However, I am now 5 pounds heavier than last year…

The second race of this series is on March 9 at Lido Beach (near Long Beach, right off the Loop Parkway).

Thanks for reading!
-Anthony

P.S.
Can you spot me in this starting line photo? Hint: I’m boxed in. (Something I need to work on)

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NYRR Coogan’s Race Report

Posted on by Anthony

Washington Heights has always been a place I would frequently pass by on my training rides towards the GWB and north up the 9W. This is also the home of Coogan’s 5km. Ever since I first ran this race back in ’11, I always seem to forget the rolling hills on Fort Washington Avenue – and this year was no different.

Coogan’s 5km 2013 – photo by Ben K.
For the past two years, I have found street parking near the race. This year, I decided to suck it up and just park at the Hospital parking garage. No reason to waste the liquid gold in my tank. Race number pickup was efficient, as with all NYRR races.
A proper warmup was necessary, especially because of sub-freezing temps (NYRR recorded 29 degrees with 10mph winds). 15 minutes of jogging was all I needed, plus some stretching in the Armory, followed by a chilly jog to the start. I would later find out that I probably underdressed just a bit.
I wanted to run this race completely by how I felt. Mile 1 split was 5:37. At that point, the cold air did not bother me. However, after making the turnaround at Fort Tyron Park and back up the hill onto Fort Washington Ave, my nose was really hurting – to a point where I could not breathe properly through them. Then came Mile 2, 5:52. That was a huge deficit from the first mile. Mile 3 wasn’t pretty either with a 5:42. From 8 minutes into the race, until the end, the effort level and feeling was complete suffering. And although a 17:52 (Garmin data) was not what I had planned, it was still a 40 sec & 120 sec improvement from 2012 and 2011, respectively. Hopefully from now on I will remember the feeling of racing in the Heights!
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