Tag: running

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

13.1 Queens Half Marathon

Posted on by Anthony

Sometimes the best way to go into a race is when your mind is free of stress. Going into the 13.1 Queens event, I had very little expectations – running mileage had been low and many scheduled workouts were pushed back due to unsafe running conditions (snow & ice). And just the day before the race, mother nature dumped about 3-5 inches of fresh powder all over the race course, making it nice and slippery on race morning.

THE RACE – March 21, 2015

Being that the race was held in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, I had the luxury of sleeping in till 7am before getting up for the race routine. By 7:45am, I had picked up my race number #76, pinned it onto my singlet and went on a warmup jog. The course was saturated with puddles and lines of slush – it was going to be a dirty race.

The race directors modified the start time, delaying it by 15 minutes to 9:15am, a relatively late start. There were two hand cyclists that made their way a few minutes before 9:15am.

The gun went off and it was a mad dash! The first 400 meters of the race was incredibly fast. The top guys had sorted themselves early on, and after hitting the first mile in 5:55 I knew that I had to dial it down or else I would pay for it later on. I was probably in 10th position around mile 1.

After mile 2, there was a right handed U-turn that showed all the guys in front of me. None of them were terribly far ahead yet.

Luckily, I was able to pace with two other runners for the remainder of the race. The 3 of us created a single file race pace line and every few minutes or so, one of us would take the lead and help push the pace…otherwise, running solo would have been miserable!

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At the halfway point, we were 7th to 9th position. By mile 8, we had caught up to some runners that had started fading. Miles 8-11 were a blur and all I remember was focusing on my pacing and breathing. We had passed a couple more runners who clearly went out a tad too fast!

By the time we hit the final short climb (overpass over the I-495), I made a quick move to force a little separation. Mile 12 was right on the other side of the overpass, followed by a water station. By then, I knew that the two other guys weren’t too far behind.

I tried my best to elongate my stride and when I hit the mile 13 marker, I pumped my arms as hard as I could move my legs.

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I finished with a time of 1:19:26, good for 4th overall.

After looking at the finish line video, the two guys behind me were only 2 and 3 seconds apart, respectively. If it weren’t for the late kick, I could have easily dropped to 5th or 6th position.

This was an unexpected personal best half marathon result. Hopefully the rest of my season is just as perfect!

Thank you Newton Running, PFC Elite Team, Headsweats, and Central Park Track Club!

 

New Newtons!

Posted on by Anthony

I just did my first run in the Newton running Gravity III. Right off the bat, they feel much more stable than it’s predecessors. I’ll have more feedback when I get some more quality mileage workouts in them.

Hello Better.

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