Return to the scene of the awesomeness

The Central Park Marathon was a triumph, no question.  And it was never more clearly evident than in the painstaking three miles I tried to run on Thursday.  I was sore in all the right ways, but after three days of rest, I was simply not ready to get back out there and shuffled along at an 8+ minute pace.

So I took Friday off and tried again on Saturday to do three miles with less pain and a 7:34 pace.  I can not say it felt great, but it felt right.

Sunday, however, was the day it starting falling back into place.  And it was at the scene of the awesomeness a week before - Central Park.

Karen and I had stayed over in New York City after attending a preview of the new Broadway musical 'Hands on a Hardbody' (more about that in my next post!), and I was positively excited about running for fun in Central Park.

It was about a mile to the park from the hotel and I took it at a decent pace.  Once on the park road, I was surprised to see so many other runners at 7:00 on a cold Sunday morning (29 degrees, cloudy and windy).

A few minutes later I heard what sounded like a swarm of bees coming up behind me. It was, in fact, a pack of cyclists in a bicycle race that was being held. As they whizzed past me, I was in awe of how fast they went and how close together they rode. Scary.

I decided to go all the way up to the Harlem hills that I heard so much about and we were able to avoid at the race a week earlier (we turned at the 102nd Street transverse).  The hills were not that bad, but the thought of doing them multiple times was not pleasant.

Up that far north, I only saw one other runner. I wished her a good morning and she replied, "Good morning...looks like we're the only two people out here today." I assured her that there were plenty of others, but they were all farther south.  I guess most people avoid those hills, race or otherwise.

Curving around to the west side, I found myself picking up speed in my sixth mile.  The memory of last week was so vivid, I could not wipe the smile off my face.

By the time I got back on the streets, now in my eighth mile, I felt like I could run another marathon. It was the utter joy of running taking over.

One week later in Central Park, I am a new man, yet very much the man I was years ago when discovering distance running for the first time.