Al Gordon Snowflake 5K

This morning I woke up at 6:45, walked my dog and then hit the 2/3 to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to Run my first 5K. The funniest thing was that once I got on the train I realized that it was full of people in running pants and Nike hats just like mine. A nice lady next to me had a course map and we started chatting about the race and figuring out how we would get to the start. It made my long morning subway ride much more enjoyable!

I love New York Road Runners because of this. There are always so many nice people at these runs and everybody is so quick to chat you up and share their own running story. Talking to a lot of these people I realize that I’ve come a long way in a short time. Getting up this morning and having a fun adventure was just a joy. With this weather so cold (28 degrees during the race!) I would have either done this or stayed in my sweats and watched the Food Network.

When we all emerged from the subway it was funny to see how many people had clearly never been to Grand Army Plaza before. The entrance of Prospect Park looks like you are in Paris. Take a look. This was a strange thing to see at 8am.

I had another pink number in the 6,000s like my last couple races which was frustrating because I am dying to finally be in a different runners group. After passing my runny buddy Clive his number (63!) in the elite runners corral I started to walk to the back and realized that I could most likely go in a higher corral which would push me to run faster and I would have less of a wait to get to the front.

I started pretty fast but once I hit mile 2 I started flying. I am still working on pushing myself to get my pace down and I felt just amazing. Hitting mile 3 I thought I was good to go. There is a beautiful pond in Prospect Park and the sun was making it twinkle. It was a beautiful scene until I saw the hill in front of me. After pushing so hard I slowed way down on the hill and slogged through my last mile.

In the end I was not only super happy to have cracked my 11 min mile average…actually 10:29 to be exact…but also to have pushed myself. The goal is to do the marathon with an average 10 miles pace. Hopefully the more I push myself the more these times will keep going down.

My friend Tara also ran today and did awesome. It was great to have her and Clive in this with me. Even though I am running many of these races alone knowing that I have friends waiting for me at the finish line makes me run even harder.

All in all it was a great race! Prospect Park is gorgeous and I am now 2 of 9 races for the 2010 New York and getting ready to start training hard-core for the More 1/2 Marathon in Central Park.

Below are some more photos!