Long Run in Central Park

First time trying out a long run today and it went great. Tina and warmed up by walking from our place to the gym on 56th and 6th; about 2 miles at a moderate walking pace. Considering we walked down Madison most of the way, we made good time and didn't get caught at too many lights. On our way downtown, we noticed lots of people walking around with race numbers, and I realized that today was the UAE Kidney Health 10K. Hopefully all those runners had a good day out there and raised some awareness for kidney health. I know how bad a kidney stone feels, for sure!

Once we arrived at NYHRC, I made a quick pitstop in the locker room to drop off our stuff and then I headed up to Central Park.

The Run

Today's run was a big deal for me. I'd been planning all week for it, and it was going to cap off my week of running 20 miles. I ate a good meal of roasted chicken and quinoa (with a little gravy!) and for breakfast I ate homemade oatmeal with apples and cinnamon. It was excellent and I was properly fueled.

From Fitness

I started out with a quick stretch at the 6th Avenue entrance to the park where all the horses line up for a drink. I felt like I had it easy compared to them. For a moment, I was considering running the the "correct" clockwise direction in the park, but then chickened out because I felt like I needed to run the parts that I "knew" so I had some grounding on this trip.

I started out at good 9:30 pace toward the museum and found that there was a lot of traffic on the road, including the horse drawn carriages and tourists walking around the park. Before I knew it I was at the 69th St entrance where I think the Israel Day run is starting and where I've done the loops twice before (including Friday). I kept 9:30 up Cat Hill and past the museum and reservoir to the 102st transverse and down into Harlem Hills, which felt just fine. But I was deliberately running slowly to save some fuel for the West Side, which I was fearing the whole time.

Once at Lenox Avenue, I hit the first uphill I had not really seen before. I slowed down to 10:43 and just cruised along with a few others in the same boat as me. What was surprising, though, was that as I ran up the hill, it was not too hard to just keep going; my heart rate felt fine, I could have carried on a conversation if I had been running with someone, which I've read is a good sign. The big surprise for the day was that after the uphill way uptown, there's a huge downgrade back to the transverse. This felt nice, even though I held the 10:40 pace.

I picked up the transverse and made it up the main hills to W90th St nice and slow. After heading back toward the 72nd St. transverse was all the detritus from the morning's race, all accompanied by a garbage truck that was passing me and stopping so I could pass every 300 yards or so. Yuck! After 72nd St. I was in new territory again, but it seemed flat and easy. I even managed to pick up the pace and finish mile 6 at 9:57, which required a little pickup in my step.

All in all, a very successful long run. I'm going to try to do it again next week tacking on a mile extra (thanks Jim!) to officially make my long run seven miles. I'm really happy about how I could vary my pace and keep my heart rate reasonable, all with limited pain in my lower legs.