Back from traveling around the world in twelve days with runs in Köln, Doha, Bangkok and Seoul, I'm happy to stay in the same time zone until the end of August and build a good running base for the New York Marathon in only 105 days.
Today's race in Central Park was the New York City Road Runners' "Run for Central Park" 4 miler. My objective was to keep up my leg speed, pushing through the hills and going full out to try and get my average pace per mile down so that I can move up in the starting pens. Since the NYRR have begun staggering racers in starting pens based on their best average per mile pace, the confusion at the start has certainly improved and the races flow much better in the first kilometers. No longer do you have to wind your way through those runners who had overestimated their minute per mile pace and started in the 8 minute pace group and then started out in the first mile doing a plodding ten minutes per mile. I was hoping that by dropping my fastest NYRR club race average from 8:22 minutes per mile down by a few seconds, I could move up from the "green" starting pen into the "yellow" pen, getting a better position in upcoming races and avoiding some of the slow-down that is inevitable in the first half kilometer as everyone sorts themselves out.
This was certainly the race to get my pace down, since four miles is not that far to run at >90% effort. The only problem was that it was a hot day, starting off at 29 degrees and going up to 32 by the end of the run. Far too hot for an optimum performance.
| HR Average | Time | |
| Mile 1 | 161 | 8:14 |
| Mile 2 | 163 | 7:55 |
| Mile 3 | 170 | 8:26 |
| Mile 4 | 175 | 7:52 |
| Total | 165 | 32:29 |
So, nice accelerating heart rate and pace was affected somewhat by the descent in the second mile and the two small hills in the third mile. I dropped my fastest average per mile from 8:22 down to 8:07, which is a good improvement considering the temperature.
My next race is not until the Nike 10km in São Paulo on 31 August, so if my plantar fascia will cooperate, I'll be upping my mileage, starting to get in some nice long slow runs, dropping down from 84 kilos to 78 kilos and building the frequency of my interval workouts. Hopefully the yoga classes, ice packs and the fabulous Strassborg Sock will keep my chronic heel pain manageable, but it and not my knee is the limiting factor this season (as it was two years ago getting ready for the Beijing Marathon.)
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