I sat down to write this post in a much better mood than I am right now, having just accidentally deleted a barrel of photos I REALLY wanted from my memory card. Ok. I’m over it. Life goes on. I also wanted to thank everyone for the very very nice birthday wishes, as well as marathon advice. Both were taken to heart.

Anyway!

Today was my first 5K since October, and my first certified course of that distance in a long, long time. I had read a couple of things about Coogan’s Salsa and Blues 5K, all of which stressed the extreme hilly nature of the course. I was not expecting a fast time by any means, seeing as I had a crummy workout on Tuesday, had not particularly tapered for the race (I ran 6.5 miles Saturday), celebrated my birthday in a righteous manner and couldn’t sleep for crap Saturday night.

The view from Dirty Jerz

The race takes place in Washington Heights, near the 168th Street Armory. Having precisely zero interest in paying $8 to drive over the George Washington, drive aimlessly for parking and end up having to pay for a lot anyway, I parked in Fort Lee, N.J., and ran the 2.25 miles to the race start. Running across the bridge has been on my bucket list for a while (I’ve biked it, but biking is less fun :P ), and it was really quite lovely. I got to the start with plenty – I mean plenty – of time to spare, so I was able to do some strides, check baggage twice and make multiple port-a-john stops. No. They really rarely gross me out.

During this warmup, I was interested to notice that my legs felt good – loose, strong and fairly ready to race. I got into my corral, situated myself towards the back, and prepared to run hills.

Bam! The horn goes off and we start shuffling towards the starting line (thanks to chip timing, the 10-90 seconds it takes me to get across the line doesn’t count toward my time). I finally cross, start running, and suddenly hear a man shouting bloody murder.

“Oh, God! Oh, no no! Stop!”

This dude sounds like he has been shot. It is upper Manhattan, I think to myself, but he is standing upright, running the opposite direction of nine billion runners.

“What the hell was that?” I asked somewhat rhetorically. A runner next to me says, “He lost his iPod.”

NOTE TO YELLING MAN: If that is so, and the reason you slowed down my first mile and made me think you were shot, NOT COOL. NO MORE OF THAT. EVER.

Moving on. Slowly, actually, because there were still a crapload of people around me, and I found it hard to get into any kind of rhythm. Honestly, in the first mile, I felt pretty darn slow. It was flat, largely, followed by a slight uphill, and I felt like I was working hard. It’s always at this point in the race – far into the first mile of a 5K – when I try to give myself every reason on earth not to race. I’ll just run it as a workout. My knee hurts. My ass hurts. I’m going to hurl. I’m going to pass out. These are lame excuses, y’all. Thankfully, I recognize them at this point. My first mile is about 6:30, which is okay.

Shortly into the second mile, we are greeted by two lovely things: the Cloisters, in Fort Tyron Park, and a huge-ass downhill. Mile two rocks! I decide that I am going to use this downhill to the best of my ability, especially because I’m going to be running UP it on the way back of this out-and-back course, and seriously haul ass. It feels pretty good until that downhill ends and turns into an uphill around the Cloisters. I’m prepared to die here, but I actually am able to pick it up and pass a woman I had had my eye on (not in that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that). Huh. Hills! I can do this. Mile two is 6:16. Rock!

Hey. Remember that awesome downhill I just talked about? That turns into an uphill during mile three. Mile three sucks, I think to myself. I don’t even try to salvage my pace and just try to keep my cadence somewhat moving. This hill will end. It will end. It  never ends. Oh God, I hate 5Ks. My knee hurts. My brain hurts. I feel like I might lose control of my bowels, which would be super embarrassing.

Hey! The hill ends. I am happy. I am less happy to note that I have nine long, long blocks to run until the end. My body is pretty much at its limit now, but my legs are still feeling really strong. I am about to just cruise in and lay off the speed, but somewhere in my poor little body I decide to push it – not as hard as I could, but more than I have at the end of many races in the past. I am still incredibly happy to finish. My time, according to the race web site, was 19:41. That’s not a PR by any means, but it is 10 seconds faster than my last early-season 5K, and on a hillier course.

So, mega-cool afterwards was that I was able to meet up with Megan, whose blog I read, and her friend Jackie, who is from Jersey (!!!!). We cooled down about three (I’m calling it three anyway) miles down the Hudson. Then I got to run across the GWB again. Would you know it, I enjoyed that trek a lot less on the way back. Maybe it was the wind (it was the wind).

Total, for the day, 11ish miles and a very solid race that gives me a good idea of where I stand fitness-wise. Looking forward to building on the effort.

Hi from Edgewater. Pardon the grime.