New York Rock n Roll 10K Race Report

Whenever I tell people I ran a race in New York, their first response is always “oh you ran the New York City Marathon?!” unfortunately, no. And since I’m late with this report, I can actually say that everyone who had planned to run it in 2012 will have the same answer (too soon?). It’s quite unfortunate what has happened in New York with Hurricane Sandy. Outside of all of that destruction and death it has already caused, I really doubt many people in New York are in the mood to run (if it’s even possible in their area…) I am definitely lucky to have made this trip just a few weeks before all of this madness took place. When I came home, I had actually said to myself that it would be my last trip to New York (had already gone 3 years in a row), but I’m optimistic that the city will get rebuilt and be even better than before!

Now back to the non-NYC marathon: the Rock n Roll New York 10K. Obviously, it’s another Rock n Roll race, one of a few that I’ve ran this year. Results: 43:23 (6:59 min/mile), 26/314 AG, 116/4187 Overall.  I was initially supposed to run the RnR half in Chicago, but just didn’t have time so I pushed it out and did NY instead. I got there 2 days before to pick up my bib and do some initial touristy stuff, but nothing too tiring that would drain energy for the race on Saturday.

The race took place in Prospect Park in Brooklyn and it was about a 30 minute subway ride from my hotel. Fortunately, the race started late enough that I didn’t have to get up too early and I had the help of our hotel concierge to give me a wakeup call. Once we arrived at the park, there was about a mile walk to the finish line / bag check area and then another half mile back to the start. I was able to find a restroom with no line away from everyone, so I didn’t have to worry about that before the race.

I was placed in corral 1 for this race, but had just arrived at the start when they took off. So I decided to just hold off and go with corral 2, not like I was planning to win the race or anything! Just as a background, since I started working out at the gym at work (July), I have not been running as much, if at all. I still wanted to get some runs in for the 10K, so I worked my way up from 3-7 miles on the weekends. My theory has always been, “if you can run the distance in a training workout, you should be able to do it in a race”. There’s obvious flaws in that logic though: race pace is usually faster than training pace, so there’s a good chance you’ll hit a wall before you hit the final distance.

The race itself was a blur as with most races, but I do remember planning the race the night before. The start and finish started around the same place. It was basically: go north, make a loop back south, pass the start, go west, loop and then back to the finish. I said it when I first posted my results on DailyMile, but I continue to amaze myself at how I can still run so fast with very little training. I didn’t even notice, but I must have held back enough at the beginning, because I was able to sustain my pace for most of the race to be able to pass people throughout the entire course and even more energy stored up at the end for a very strong kick to the finish line.

Here are some photos from the race, there’s one where my mouth is completely wide open, obviously not very flattering.