It’s pretty incredible how dependent I am on a routine. After a dumb error on my part this week with a FreshDirect order that didn’t get delivered, I still had to find a way to make dinner at home. No eating out after five days of doing so, even if it is just making pasta, chicken, and tomato sauce. Later this week, I am traveling for work and I started getting anxious about it weeks ago.
This morning, I ran my first 5K since July (another non-routine); Coogan’s Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5K in Washington Heights. I got a Polar heart rate monitor as a Valentine’s Day present from Josh (we don’t really exchange presents for Valentine’s Day, so technically it’s not a present in my mind) and I planned on trying it out this morning for the race. However, somehow my watch battery drained itself over night, so by the time I was at the start line ready to link my sensors, the watch stopped working. Fortunately, I was planning on running with my phone, so my backup plan was the Nike+ app. Even though I wasn’t able to track my heart rate, I was happy that I was able to at least track the run.
After some fumbling to start the GPS on the app, I started the run. I had heard from many of my teammates that this was going to be a hilly course and not having raced a 5K in almost eight months, I was really worried about pacing. Unfortunately for me, a 5K is too long to be a sprint and too short to be a distance run. I still need to pace myself especially if there are hills involved, but I definitely do not have enough recent experience to know what my body can handle. With the greater part of the first mile spent dodging runners and walkers, I finally got into a groove around the second mile but with the up and downhills, lack of my watch to help me with my pacing, I never gained full momentum. I did however PR by over three minutes, which as Josh told me over brunch, was to be expected… (nope, no congratulations!)
Regardless, I did enjoy a stop inside of the NYC Armory this morning before the race. It brought back a lot of memories from my track meet days in high school and college. I remember my high school men’s 4×400 team competing at the Millrose Games and personally running a 200-meter leg of my college team’s sprint relay at the Armory. The good, old days when track meets took up your entire day, I definitely don’t miss that aspect of track!
