2011 Al Gordon 4-Miler in Prospect Park

Overall Time: 24:54
Pace: 6:13
Place: 81 of 3992
AG%: 67.7%

Weather: 31 Degrees, 54% Humidity, Fair
Start time: 9:00

Splits: 6:13, 6:11, 5:57, 6:27

Well it’s about goddamn time that NYRR had a race in Prospect Park! For once I could do a warm-up jog to the event, and didn’t have to wake up 3 hours to make sure I got to the start on time!

Only 36 hours before this race, I had participated in a 10K relay at an indoor track meet. My hamstrings were totally blown, and and knew this wasn’t going to go terribly well. I dialed back both the pace and the expectations. While this doesn’t mean that I allowed myself to give up completely, it did allow me to not worry about breaking a 5:59 pace this time around.

My hamstrings were tight, and my legs had absolutely no “go” in them. It’s amazing how dead legs can feel after a hard speed workout — especially when said legs hadn’t done a speed workout in almost 6 months.

My only real goal was to break 25:00, which I did despite slowing way way down that last mile. I’m not really sure how I went from a 5:57 mile to a 6:27, but the Garmin ain’t lying and I’ve got no reason to doubt it.

As much as I do love 4-mile races, this will be the last one I do for a while. Racing the short distances seriously means that I forego long runs on raceway weekends — and with my emphasis being the half marathon and marathon this year, I can’t afford a little ego boost to get in the way of proper long-distance training.