“How will I keep myself hydrated given that I am running all by myself?”
“Oh no, the mid-terms are approaching and everybody is studying. And here I am, spending 4 glorious hours of a Sunday morning running in Central Park!”
As my training for the NYC marathon on 7th November 2010 approached its peak, a flurry of questions started racing through my mind. I knew I had to get this run right in order to boost my confidence on the marathon raceday three weeks from today.
Having missed my previously scheduled 20 mile run (life at SIPA caught up on me!) two weeks back, this was the last opportunity to do a strong 20 mile practice run and get back on track for a super finish on 7th November.
With all the burden that life @SIPA had imposed upon me, I ended up sticking to 75% of my ideal training schedule. Though I wish I had done better, I was also happy that I was running pretty strong in the last month. I ran several half-marathon distances (and more) well within my target marathon pace of 9:30min a mile. I also ran my fastest 10k at the Governor’s Island 10k race on a windy and chilly (11⁰C) morning at 7:55min a mile.
I knew that running all by myself (as against running in a group / organized practice run) would mean extra effort. So I took extra care this entire week leading up to Sunday morning, just to be in perfect shape and strength on Sunday morning, including a nice pasta dinner on Saturday night at Max Cafe. If that wasn’t enough, I pepped myself up on Saturday evening by buying some extra gear - special runner’s socks and wrist bands!
I woke up today morning to discover a nice and bright sun, just as www.weather.com had predicted! A very light breakfast and a warm shower later, I hopped outside International House to begin my 20min walk to Central Park – my favourite running track.
Though I will reserve my impressions of Central Park for a dedicated blog post later, I can’t help but admit how much I have fallen in love with this patch of green land in the centre of Manatten, ever since I started running here two months back. I have seen some quirkiest of people doing coolest of things in the remotest of corners of Central Park which more than anything else, captures for me the spirit of NYC!
So as I began my long run today, I found it interesting though not surprising to see over a thousand supporters of “Avon Walk for Breast Cancer” completing the final stretch of their 40mile walk in Central Park. They were all jumping and cheering each other, and the air was filled with optimism for their chosen cause.
I think some of that optimism rubbed off to me, given how comfortably I finished the first 11 miles of my run. After a quick stop to recharge myself with some Gatorade, I started again. With each passing mile, I could see myself reducing my pace steadily yet slowly so as to be able to finish the entire distance comfortably.
The final few miles are always the ones where you need more motivation than strength to be able to get through them well. While the sight of 60yr old men and women running (very common in Central Park) and overtaking me never fail to motivate, my strongest source of motivation today ended up being a small comment from a runner friend in India last week. Training for the Bangalore ultra-marathon (75kms / 47miles), she said, “Oh, marathon? I could run that on any given day now”.
So as it turned out, I finished my 20miles today in 3hrs and 10min – just about the perfect pace I am shooting for. The best part, I felt reasonably strong at the end of it to carry on for the rest of my day as usual. In short, just the perfect kind of confidence booster I badly required.
I can now calmly sit back and wait for the magic of marathon raceday to unfold!
