My Run in NYC

Schedule called for 12 miles and 12 miles I did. It was raining and the ground was slushy & slippery from yesterday's snow. Rain was coming down pretty good, so for the first time ever, I ran with a poncho. I probably looked like a dork, but whatever, I had to get this run done today. Tomorrow I am volunteering at Stu's 30k, one of the club' races. Not sure what I'll be doing yet, but I told the race director that I'm willing to help out where ever. It will be fun.

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This week's trip to NYC was a busy one. We worked a lot of hours but we did get to go out at night and do some site seeing. I've been there many times before for work and with the family, but this was the first time my coworker had been there since he was a kid. So he was in awe of the whole trip. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw some of my tweets from my trip.

Thursday morning I got up about 5am had myself some coffee, threw on my running gear and hit the streets a little after 6. I had no clue where I was going. I just figured that I would just run, keep track of the miles on my Garmin and just turn around at about the 2.5 mile mark and make it a good 5 miles. I headed towards Times Square which was a mile from our hotel.

It was weird to see Times Square so empty.

Though I have visited NYC many times. I still don't know where everything is in relation to everything else. I couldn't tell you where the Statue of Liberty is or where the Twins towers were. I can only tell you where the  Empire State Building is and that only because I can see it in the skyline. I ran past Times Square and I eventually ended up at Central Park. When I saw all the runners there, I at first thought there was a race going on. Nope.... just people out for their morning runs. Honestly, without exaggerating there were hundreds of people out there! Everywhere you looked, people running in all directions. Fast runners, slow runners, solo runners, group runners... runners of all kinds! I was in runner's heaven!!! I started down a path and was on my way. In no time, I was in a pack of runners. I had no clue where I was going. I just followed the pack. It was like being in a race but I know that I wasn't. So it was hard to get my mind not to switch in to race mode. I kept telling myself  "relax, just enjoy this". Time stood still while running with my newly formed pack. That is, until I looked at my Garmin and saw that I was already 3 miles out! I could have run with them forever!! Sadly, I broke away and ran on the outside of the park headed back towards my hotel.

The run back was really hectic. By this time I think most New Yorkers are on their way to work and the streets were super busy. I was avoiding cars, buses and Taxis of all kinds. But mostly avoiding people. The sidewalks were the busiest. I zig-zagged my way back in one piece.

Literally zig-zagged my way back.

Unfortunately, that was the only run that I was able to pull out while out there. Work got in the way. According to my new boss, it looks like I will be out here at least once every other month for 3 to 5 days at a time. So I'll get another chance to run with a pack again. :) 

Hope you guys are having a great weekend.