March 12, 2011

Race Date: 12.3.2011
Official Finishing Time: 19:01
Official Position: 7/260
Race number: 790

My first race in the US, and in fact my first race since last October. Organised by NYU Physical Therapy Research graduates, hence the name: NYU DPT 5k. The race was first of its kind, but the organisation was smooth enough. More troublesome was actually getting to the race, as the metro service is generally not very reliable in the weekends (due to all sorts of maintenance work etc).

It felt good to get racing again, although this one was really just a test run of sorts. I didn’t really taper for the race at all, having done a 50 mile week again, so I wasn’t expecting anything amazing. Still, I thought I might be able to break my PB of 18:46 (in October) simply because of the mileage I’ve done. Well, that was not to be, but to be fair the course was tougher than the flat Newcastle Parkrun where I ran my PB, and it was a bit windy as well.

The race took place in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, which seems to be a nice place for running. Quite similar to Central Park, but not quite as crowded. The main loop is just over 5k. The day was nice and sunny, good temperature for running (around 6 degrees Celcius), perfect conditions really, except for the wind. There is an uphill bit in the park loop as well, and that slowed us down considerably, as is evident from the splits. The first k was partly downhill, but it was still rather fast. The Garmin reports elevation gain at 28m and loss at 20m.

Splits:
1k 03:32
2k 03:51
3k 03:58
4k 04:04
5k 03:36 (0.96k according to the Garmin)
Total: 4.96k in 19:03 (stopped the Garmin a bit late)

The splits don’t look so great, but at least I wasn’t working too hard: my average heart rate was only 169bpm, whereas usually in a 5k race it’s around 177bpm. I didn’t feel particularly tired after the race either. A PB should certainly be possible then, and I do hope to go below 18min this season.

There weren’t too many ‘serious’ runners in this race, but the top three were all sub 18min. I finished on the heels of two other guys and we got a nice sprint finish, so there was a racing feeling anyway. I had a chat with the guy who finished fifth just a second or so ahead of me — a 35min 10k triathlete — already before the race. Always nice to get some running aquintances in a new city!

Official results here.
Garmin data here.

Tags: 5k, race report