In my journey to complete my NYRR 9+1 I headed to my third Central Park race of the year on April 10th – the Run for the Parks 4 Miler. In all the pictures of past races, people are smiling in tank tops, happily jumping through the air and gamboling about like bunnies in the fresh buds blooming all around the park. This year? Not so much.

I’ve run some cold races in my life. Frozen hail, snow, pouring rain, driving winds. But even though the sun was out for this race, I felt like I was never going to get warm again, ever.

Either way, we made it into the city bright and early, and headed uptown on the subway to the start at around 70th street. While it was super cold, I will say that this race is going down in history as the biggest surprise of my life: after toiling away at my pace for months, all the hard work has paid off and the NYRR finally bumped me up out of the last corral!!

Just like the consistent improvements I’ve seen in my times, I’m sure this was a fluke and I’ll be dropped back down to L in my next race (because this race’s time wasn’t too hot), but with the race bib above, I can definitively state, with photographic proof, that I was NOT last in at least one NYRR race in my life.

After jumping up and down and squealing over my shiny new K for a bit, we headed to the corral. I kept my big fluffy coat on as long as possible, but once I got behind the corral fence and had to hand the coat off to my hubby, I froze *instantly*. I had layered with a longsleeve and my cold weather insulated Brooks jacket (and a hat and gloves!) but it just wasn’t enough. I usually warm up after the first half mile or so, but not today. My toes and fingers were so cold they ached.

Once the gun went off, my frozen feet even affected my running! They were so numb that I had to change my gait for the first mile, which wasn’t fun. NBD though: I had gone into the race aiming just to finish – having done my long run on the treadmill the day before, my legs were aching to begin with, and I wasn’t about to push too hard so close to race day.

The funny thing about running 10 miles the day before a 4 mile race: 4 miles seems like NOTHING! Seriously – once I heard the first mile click by on my watch, the second mile felt like it flew by even faster. I finally warmed up to a comfortable temperature by mile 2, and I was even picking some folks off as I cruised along at around 11:50. I hadn’t expected to go that fast!

Mile 3 came and went, and once I hit 3.25 I started to pick up the pace. The arches of my feet were angry at the hills I’d taken so soon after pounding them on a treadmill for 2 hours, but I kept telling myself it was almost over. And once I saw that finish line, I sprinted – finishing in 46:58, avg. 11:46/mile!

To make things even more exciting, I had a friend waiting for me at the finish line: Lizzie, a fellow member of The Mermaid Club, who lives a few blocks away from the park, came out to cheer me on and warm up with coffee after the race! She snapped all these great pics you see up there 🙂 We all met up at the finish and walked over to a nearby Starbucks where we BS’d about work, life, running, and all that other fun stuff for a while before heading back home to a warm shower and a nap.

Overall while this wasn’t my best NYRR race, my performance after a long run the day before surprised me and I’m pretty excited about checking another race off my 9+1 list too!