I did it! Yesterday was a beautiful day for running, clean and not too hot and not too cold. I braved the crowded course, avoided collisions as I passed (and alas, was passed by) runners, and slogged up hills. Yes, hills. Sadly, my training had neglected hills and it hadn't occurred to me that there would be hills (these hills are really much more noticeable when you're running) in Central Park, but there were. So the race was a little harder than I'd anticipated and I couldn't push myself as much as I'd planned. But I made it, and I finished in under 40 minutes, which was my goal.
For some reason, the race results still aren't up on the NYRR site. When they are, I'll post my official time. Ok, my net time was 37:39 and my pace 9:24/mile. Not the best, not the worst (especially with those hills!) and there's lots of room for improvement. Thanks, once again, to everyone who contributed. It was a great day, a great race, and we raised over $975,000 to provide meals to people living with AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses.
Here's a full-size photo of me [54 KB] in racing action, thanks to Jason who picked me out of the crowd by some miracle.
In less than two weeks, I'm going to run the NYRR Hot Chocolate 15K, 9.3 miles in Central Park. This time though there's no fund raising involved. This time it's just for the free hot chocolate at the end!