Tag: NYRR

Running thru January & February 2017

Posted on by Anthony

If I had to pick a favorite Winter month, it would be January. For most, represents an opportunity to start the year on a clean slate. For me, this month is used to reflect on my past accomplishments and setbacks from 2016; take a step back and re-align myself with my short-term and long-term goals. One of those goals is to race my first Boston Marathon on April 17 – so short term, there WILL be lots of running!!!

Here are some pictures to start!

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Jan 7, 2017 – NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10K

Location: Central Park, NYC

Weather: 23 degrees F, 46% humidity, 9mph wind – Light Snow into heavy snow

Before heading out to a work trip on the first weekend of January, my friend Henry convinced me to race the NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10K in Central Park. After racing it last year and setting a 10-kilometer personal best of 35:27, I knew that contesting for a personal best would be a stretch. So instead, I utilized the race as a workout – I ran the first 5km as a threshold effort, then 2 miles at goal marathon pace, followed by a 1.2 mile hard effort to the finish.

Total finish time of 36:32, 5:53 avg. per mile.

First Pacing Event of the Year! 

Jan 22, 2017 – NYRR Fred Lebow Manhattan Half

Location: Central Park, NYC

Weather: 43 Degrees, 100% Humidity, Wind W 3 mph, Fog/Mist

Pacing the 1:30 group meant that my goal time was 1:29:30 (30 seconds under). The new course featured 2 ½ counter-clockwise loops of Central Park. For my fellow New Yorkers, that meant 3x’s up Cat Hill and 2x’s up Harlem Hill…a challenging course with all within the park. And to make things a bit more interesting, there was a nice blanket of fog that made conditions, well, moist! Nonetheless, I was set out to hit even splits given the undulating course. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred 

Total finish time of 1:29:22, 6:49 avg. per mile.


Fast forward to SuperBowl Sunday and seeing that Christina has neither raced in Central Park nor a 4-mile race, it was fitting that we both registered for the NYRR Gridiron 4M.

Feb 5, 2017 – NYRR Gridiron 4M

Location: Central Park, NYC

Weather: 34 degrees, humidity 52%, wind 9 mph

It was another chilly February morning so Christina and I stayed bundled up until we finished our warmup jog and pre-race rituals. We lined up in the A corral with about 5 minutes before the start and wiggled our way towards the middle. Huddle for warmth, right? At 9am, we were on our way – counterclockwise around the park just like the Manhattan Half (minus the Harlem Hill). I let Christina do the pacing so my goal was to stay beside her. We hit the first mile a few clicks under 7 minutes, where we did the most weaving through the slower runners. For the most part, we held a very constant pace, faded just slightly on Cat Hill and then booked it to the finish! And with that, a new personal best for Christina. (We’ll be racing the RnR DC half marathon in March, too!)

Feb 19, 2017 – PPTC Cherry Tree 10M

Location: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in NYC; unseasonably warm for mid February! Coupled with fine weather and a relatively late race start (10am) meant that I was able to sleep in, grab my racing flats and head over to Prospect Park in no hurry. Once I arrived at registration, I bumped into a fellow CPTC teammate, Nobu. We decided to warm up together and catch up.

Having never raced a standalone 10 miler and coming off of a 60 mile run training week, this race would serve as a long threshold workout. Right from the start of the race, I settled into 5:50 per mile pace and found myself racing alone. Nobu and a handful of guys were up ahead but their pace would not have been sustainable for me. So for nearly 95% of the 3-loops of Prospect Park, I ran completely alone. Instead of worrying about my pace, I focused on my breathing and leg turnover…especially during the climb towards Grand Army Plaza. The first lap of the race was my fastest and my 2nd and 3rd laps were nearly identical, guiding me across the finish line in 58:18, 5:50 avg. per mile, and good for 7th place overall.

And just like that, two months of the year are already behind us.

I’ve logged over 500 running miles as of writing this post and The 121st Running of the Boston Marathon is just around the corner.

Run fitness is finally starting to take shape and I’ll have more updates soon!

Thanks for reading – my next update will be posted after rockin’ Rock ‘n’ Roll D.C. half marathon on March 11th, 2017.


United Airlines NYC Half Marathon [2016]

Posted on by Anthony

Just 8 days removed from a 1:17:30 personal best at the Rock n Roll Washington DC 1/2 Marathon last week, I was able to bounce back quite quickly with some high intensity training. Or maybe it was all the chocolate milk I chugged. Either way, going into Sunday’s NYC Half Marathon, I was confident that I could better my result from Washington DC. After all, Harlem hill is much shorter than the Rock Creek Climb.

 

On race day, I woke up at 4am, out of the house at 4:30, picked up Karen, scooped up Derek, and carpooled into Manhattan. We landed in Chinatown a 5:30, hopped on the uptown 6 train to Central Park. Derek and I arrived at the UPS baggage trucks around 6:15, so we had plenty of time to chat with other running friends.

NYC Half Tip: When driving to the NYC Half, park your car in Chinatown so you can hit up some delicious Chinese cuisine post race!

By 7am, we we had passed the security gates into Central Park. We jumped into the corral at 7:15, with only 15 minutes before the start of the race.

After the instructions from NYRR’s Peter Ciaccia, we were off!

In the first mile, I was able to stay on Derek’s heels. The plan was to stay with him throughout the race, but even the best laid plans are still subject to outside variables…one of those variables, my legs. After descending down Harlem hill, I had lost Derek by a few seconds. In fact, I lost contact with the large pack. Where were my legs? My turnover felt consistent but the pack kept on creeping away.

After running through 5km in 17:48, I knew that it would be tough to keep the pace for the next 16km. Harlem Hill always seems longer on race day and after getting to the top of it, the legs were screaming. I put my head down and tried to extend my stride as I hit the rolling hills throughout the west side of the park. According to NYRR, I hit the 10km mark at 36 minutes flat.

After leaving Central Park, I found a couple of guys to tuck behind…but that did not last long by the time we got to the West Side Highway. For the next few miles, I tried my best to keep the rhythm going. It was hard. I was getting passed. My legs were shot. And my form was definitely starting to fade. The 3rd 4km split was an 18:11, which clocked me in at 54:11 for 15km. Another 5km in 18:39 got me to 20km at 1:12:50. At that point, I knew that a sub 1:17:30 was in the bank, but was sub 1:17?

Thank you Tom F. (Dashing Whippets RT) for taking this shot of me running down the West Side Highway.

2016-03-20 22.47.43

So, it came down to how fast I could run 1.1km…4 minutes?

Well, 4 minutes and 1 second.

So after a tough 13 miles… from getting dropped in Central Park, running up Harlem Hill alone, trying again and again to regain my rhythm, I sprinted as fast I could down the finishers chute and crossed the tape in 1:16:54. A personal best (for now).

Thank you Central Park Track Club – New Balance! It was fun to see everyone on course!

This was certainly not the race I wanted to execute. Anytime I positive split the second half of a running race, when I should be kicking it into overdrive, is a disappointing and mentally challenging, uncontrolled part of the game. But like I said up above, even the best plans can change in an instant. This race has helped teach me how to adapt to factors that I can control and to roll with the ones that I cannot.

Thanks for reading!!

…for the next few weeks, I will be enjoying some more cycling (and a little less running), as I transition into multisport and triathlon season.

 

See you out there & Happy Easter!!!

NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10km Race Report, 1/9/16

Posted on by Anthony

My last race as a 24-year old

This 10km was probably my most spontaneous action of the year, thus far. (sort of anti-climactic…) Knowing that I would be out of town for business for the majority of the week, my opportunity to effectively run a hard tempo/threshold type workout was slim. I decided to run the NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10km race in Central Park, NY. This is New York Road Runner’s annual “first-race-of-the-year”, and that applied to myself as well.

Race conditions on race morning were perfect. Here’s what NYRR recorded:

“Weather:  41degrees, 76% humidity, E 10 mph wind”

The race started at 8am near the East 102nd street transverse going in an anti-clockwise direction. We did a full loop of Central Park, passed the start line and finished on the 102nd street transverse.

I had mile splits turned off my watch so the only data I could come up with was from the actual 10km split. According to WKO4, the run pace was consistent throughout. Cadence fell slightly during the climbs up Harlem and Cat Hills (mile 1 & 5), and heart rate gradually rose (and dipped a few bpm on the down sections of the rolling hills). Attached is a colorful graph exported from WKO4 with some data smoothing.

2016 nyrr joek wko chart

Although I don’t have mile splits, I recall seeing my 5km split at 17:48, which means that I negative splitted the second half of the race. Thank you to CPTC-NB for the cheering out on course! I really enjoyed the race, and it felt amazing to start 2016 with a personal best 10km time of 35:27.

Full results can be found here

Next up is the Los Angeles Marathon on February 14th!

Thanks for reading! – Anthony

P.S. – I didn’t get a chance to take photos, but if I stumble upon some race pics, I’ll be updating this blog with some more visual content. Until then, enjoy the graph!

Update: Found a couple of snapshots, courtesy of NYRR.

Screenshot 2016-01-09 16.42.20

Screenshot 2016-01-09 16.47.19

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