NYRR American Heart Association Wall Street Run - Marathon Qualifier 6/9
This post will probably elicit several jabs. The run itself has already been ridiculed by several Virginians (VA, DC, whatever). I guess its not cool to run with people in Finance - even if they're trying to raise money and awareness for heart disease. Probably more jab-worthy is the fact that this 5K was not actually 5K. It was 4.6K. Why? I don't know. In fact, I just found out now, almost a week later, when I started to write this post.
The explanation given was:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the course had to be cut by approximately 5 blocks, making the total distance 2.9 miles. NYRR regrets the late change and thanks you for your understanding.
To the credit of the people of NYRR, they actually figured out what the distance was and adjusted the results. This here fancy arithmetic is WAY beyond the means of some Virginia-based running club.
Anyway, I ran the American Heart Association Wall Street Run on May 17, 2006 at 6:30 pm. My brother ran with me and given the nature of traffic at that time, we had to leave at 4:30 pm to get there. We probably should have taken a train into the city, but that comes with its own set of annoyances.
Dozens of heterogeneous blobs of people in their company's custom t-shirts all stood waiting for the race to start. The shirts had dopey sayings like "Run with the Bulls". Merril Lynch, Bloomberg, JP Morgan, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs... all those Excel jockeys were there. There were a whole bunch of people walking and when the race started, nobody moved. This is not unusual for races of this size, but with all the people walking the course, it seemed to take way longer than I'm used to. My brother and I decided to stand around for 7 or so minutes before crossing the starting line. Because we were blocking NYC streets the cops and race organizers were trying to convince us to start moving, but we just stood there.
Once we did start, the race was like an obstacle course. Jumping up curbs, squeezing between walkers, darting in and out of scaffolding on the sidewalk. It was kinda fun. I tried to keep up with my brother, but he's just too fast for me. After about a mile he lost me. I could see him up ahead of me for a while, but eventually he turned a corner and I didn't see him again until I picked up my post-race Subway sandwich and spotted him on the top of a statue pedestal.
The course went through some streets of NYC that were so foreign to me. Not that I'm all familiar with NYC... Like I said before I've been to the city like 30 times. However, the architecture resembled houses in Denmark and I've never seen anything like that in the city.
There were a lot of people watching the race from the sidewalks of Wall Street, but they weren't cheering. They mostly looked annoyed that they were being held up by this crazy race going right their evening commute.
For some reason, I run much better in the morning. I was hurtin pretty bad. It didn't help that I was trying to keep up with my brother who is so much faster than me. I burn out pretty quick at that pace.
The race had signs along the course that had factoids about heart disease and exercising and stuff. One of the signs said something like any exercise is good for your heart. I was just thinking about how out of breath I was and how much my side hurt and I'm pretty sure this isn't what they meant.
The race was sponsored by Subway and they had sandwiches at the end. My brother and I grabbed one each. They were small, but both of us felt sick after eating them. It felt like the sandwich had expanded in our gut and turned into a brick. Subway Sandwich = bad post-race food. We were searching for an apple or banana, but we had no luck. My pace was ok, but this wasn't my favorite race.
NYRR American Heart Association Wall Street Run (4.6K) - Bib # 1150
Financial District
New York, NY
May 17, 2006, 6:30 pm
Weather: 67 deg., partly cloudy.
Jon August, 32
Net Time: 26:41
Gun Time: 33:41
Overall Place: 3107/4455
Age Place: 785/957
Gender Place: 1940/2403
Pace: 9:12
Complete Results (Link to NYRR site)
Don't forget to join Team Factory Interactive for the Army Ten Miler! Space is limited.
...and I'm Just Getting Started.
The explanation given was:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the course had to be cut by approximately 5 blocks, making the total distance 2.9 miles. NYRR regrets the late change and thanks you for your understanding.
To the credit of the people of NYRR, they actually figured out what the distance was and adjusted the results. This here fancy arithmetic is WAY beyond the means of some Virginia-based running club.
Anyway, I ran the American Heart Association Wall Street Run on May 17, 2006 at 6:30 pm. My brother ran with me and given the nature of traffic at that time, we had to leave at 4:30 pm to get there. We probably should have taken a train into the city, but that comes with its own set of annoyances.
Dozens of heterogeneous blobs of people in their company's custom t-shirts all stood waiting for the race to start. The shirts had dopey sayings like "Run with the Bulls". Merril Lynch, Bloomberg, JP Morgan, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs... all those Excel jockeys were there. There were a whole bunch of people walking and when the race started, nobody moved. This is not unusual for races of this size, but with all the people walking the course, it seemed to take way longer than I'm used to. My brother and I decided to stand around for 7 or so minutes before crossing the starting line. Because we were blocking NYC streets the cops and race organizers were trying to convince us to start moving, but we just stood there.
Once we did start, the race was like an obstacle course. Jumping up curbs, squeezing between walkers, darting in and out of scaffolding on the sidewalk. It was kinda fun. I tried to keep up with my brother, but he's just too fast for me. After about a mile he lost me. I could see him up ahead of me for a while, but eventually he turned a corner and I didn't see him again until I picked up my post-race Subway sandwich and spotted him on the top of a statue pedestal.
The course went through some streets of NYC that were so foreign to me. Not that I'm all familiar with NYC... Like I said before I've been to the city like 30 times. However, the architecture resembled houses in Denmark and I've never seen anything like that in the city.
There were a lot of people watching the race from the sidewalks of Wall Street, but they weren't cheering. They mostly looked annoyed that they were being held up by this crazy race going right their evening commute.
For some reason, I run much better in the morning. I was hurtin pretty bad. It didn't help that I was trying to keep up with my brother who is so much faster than me. I burn out pretty quick at that pace.
The race had signs along the course that had factoids about heart disease and exercising and stuff. One of the signs said something like any exercise is good for your heart. I was just thinking about how out of breath I was and how much my side hurt and I'm pretty sure this isn't what they meant.
The race was sponsored by Subway and they had sandwiches at the end. My brother and I grabbed one each. They were small, but both of us felt sick after eating them. It felt like the sandwich had expanded in our gut and turned into a brick. Subway Sandwich = bad post-race food. We were searching for an apple or banana, but we had no luck. My pace was ok, but this wasn't my favorite race.
NYRR American Heart Association Wall Street Run (4.6K) - Bib # 1150
Financial District
New York, NY
May 17, 2006, 6:30 pm
Weather: 67 deg., partly cloudy.
Jon August, 32
Net Time: 26:41
Gun Time: 33:41
Overall Place: 3107/4455
Age Place: 785/957
Gender Place: 1940/2403
Pace: 9:12
Complete Results (Link to NYRR site)
Don't forget to join Team Factory Interactive for the Army Ten Miler! Space is limited.
...and I'm Just Getting Started.
posted by Jon at
10:27 AM
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