Running in the city

I'm in New York for the week, and I've been enjoying the sights and sounds of the city. But naturally I also brought my running gear as well. I'm still technically recovering from the marathon but on Thanksgiving Day I couldn't resist running in the Thanksgiving Marathon, in Van Cortlandt Park, where I ran regularly when I lived here (I would just be doing the quarter-marathon).

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving had other plans for me. As my friend Pat and I headed towards the subway line to ride up to the Bronx, we began to realize that the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade route was in our way. Although the parade hadn't started yet, the street was fully barricaded off, and spectators were lined 10-deep. We needed to get to the other side in order to catch the subway, and it simply wasn't happening.

So instead we decided to run the famed Central Park loop, where the New York Marathon had been run for many years. It was a lovely run, and we even got to see part of the parade through the trees.

Believe it or not, that's Buzz Lightyear floating through the trees

But we took the whole run at an easy jog, and I was feeling restless. So this morning I decided to head out on my own at a faster pace. I have been holding back on every run since the marathon, and I've been feeling like I might be losing a bit of my speed. Today I decided to not exactly put the pedal to the metal, but give it a solid test drive.

I headed out at about a 7:45 pace, and felt quite good all the way around Central Park. When you add in the half-mile to and from the park, it was over a 7.5-mile run, on a beautiful, crisp New York morning. I was a little winded at the end, but it was nice to realize that I could still run at a decent pace after nearly two weeks of extremely light running.

Technically I should still be running easy recovery runs, but I think I'm going to gradually amp things up a bit as I get ready for my next challenge, a 1:30 half-marathon and guaranteed entry into next year's New York Marathon. Stay tuned!

Details of today's run are below.

The Garmin didn't locate satellite signal until about a mile and a half into the run, but otherwise it's a complete record -- I edited the total mileage and time to account for the gap.