Central Park Loop and Late Night In New York

Yesterday, I got into New York City around 2:30pm and immediately went to the Regus day office that I had reserved at 11 Park Plaza. It's nice to have the flexibility to work from anywhere most of the time!

My last conference call of the day ended a little after 5:30pm, and then off I went - with bags in tow - to the subway and up to my friend's apartment on 70th and Broadway. I was surprised at how quickly it took - I was in his apartment before 6pm.

I quickly changed into running clothes and then I walked over to Columbus Circle for the group run. It took much longer than usual for Garmin to pick up a satellite...it wasn't until I got to Central Park West and stopped to stretch that it finally locked in.

I was surprised to see so many people congregating into different running groups. There were even more running groups (some which were probably 50-70 people!) that we encountered while running the loop.

The Alzheimer's Association team had about 15 runners. Immediately from the get go (and without any prompting), the group split up into three groups running at different paces. I hung back with MM - who I ran with the last time I was in Central Park. We ran together for close to 2 miles when we stopped for water. Uur pace was somewhere in the 10:00 to 10:20/mile range which was an OK pace for me but a bit fast for her. At that point she decided to walk a bit and then slow down.

I decided to pick up the pace since this was my mid-week run where I sometimes do my speedwork. At first I was trying to do a fast 1/2 mile and then slow down for a 1/4 mile - like the Yasso workouts. However, I wasn't timing my 1/2 mile intervals...I was just going on feel. In the middle of my 2nd "interval" I saw the second pack of runners from my team. I caught up with them and decided to run the rest of the way with them. At that point they were doing closer to a 9:15 - 9:30/mile, which is about the pace I was running my Yasso intervals at. Except that I still had about 3 miles to go!

I ended up doing fine with this group. I think the last two miles we ran closer to a 9:00/mile pace (mile 6 may have been sub-9). The entire run was a little over 6 miles and for me a little over 57 minutes. I thought to myself that I should be able to kick some major behind in this year's Turkey Chase. Even though it's a hilly course, I'll definitely be able to aim for a course PR (current course PR is 1:00:33) and perhaps even a new 10K PR (current 10K PR is 56:14).

After the run, I went back to my friend's apartment for a quick shower and then met a high school friend for dinner. (I spoke to Sherry on the way and her remark was "it's almost 9:00 at night - you haven't eaten dinner yet???") I hadn't seen him in a few years and we had a lot of catching up to do. Things went much later than I had planned and I didn't get back to the apartment until close to midnight - whoa!

Today, I reserved an office at the Chrysler Building. I thought it would be really cool to work there - plus, the Alzheimer's Association office is a few blocks down Lexington Avenue - and I have a team meeting there later this evening. As I went to subway station, I was told that there was a track fire on that line so none of the trains were moving. Great! I decided to walk cross-town - through Central Park - and then take the subway on the East side. It's kind of ironic - at home, I never would consider walking a mile and a half to get to public transportation to get to an office...but in New York City it seemed extremely appropriate!