When we touched the ground at JFK

No more snow melting on the ground... (props if you get the musical reference)

Sunday dawned clear and sunny, not a cloud in the sky and the temps read somewhere in the 50s. Hooray for spring!

At a very early hour, six Reservoir Dogs and a couple of Harriers gathered at JFK Airport. We had no tickets, no baggage -- no nothing except for the rather "government issue"-looking square yellow chips we were told to strap to our ankles. It was my first time there, since I've always flown in/out of LaGuardia and am actually not scheduled to visit these terminals until I leave for Turkey in October. So yeah, my first visit to JFK was to run a 5k - on the runway!

We ended up getting there super early, so we just hung out for a while before hopping the shuttle to the starting point at one of the hangars. After a few minutes warming-up around a small parking lot and a couple of striders, we gathered at the start. The small field - less than 300 runners - milled about while final arrangements were made, and about 10 minutes after 9am we were off!

In just seconds, we had left the hangar and hit one of the small service paths that led in the direction of the runway. The air was incredibly dry - I felt parched even before the race started, and I don't think it was due to the half-bottle of wine I had with dinner the night before - but fortunately there was almost no wind and the very bright sun hadn't heated things up yet. I was a little nervous at the rumor that there would be no mile markers, but I quickly pushed those thoughts out of mind as I gathered my thoughts on the tougher task ahead. I heard BigIr come up behind me, and side by side we made the turn to where the real fun began: the runway! And not a small one either... as I looked up I saw the course open up ahead of me, very straight, long, and very flat.

Of course, this flatness was exactly why I chose this race. But it was strange! With no trees, no mile markers, no noise/spectators and very few fellow runners around me, it was incredibly difficult to judge my speed and progress. In fact, it felt a lot like running in the dark. I alternated between worrying that I'd run too fast and burn out (my breathing was heavy, if controlled), and thinking that maybe I wasn't working hard enough and I'd miss my goal (my legs felt fine and I felt relaxed). With the turnaround looming up ahead, I knew I'd at least have an idea of my halfway split then - but even my gauging of distance was off, not least because when you're running right at something this enormous it's hard to tell how close you are:


As the lead runners began to pass us on their way back, I thought briefly about looking to see how many women there were since I'd seen only two or three up at the front of the start with us. BigIr was (inexplicably) cheering for the ResDog men ahead of us, too. But then I reminded myself, hey, there's a big fat JetBlue Airbus parked up ahead and I'm running straight at it, maybe I should focus on that! I finally reached the turnaround, which was practically under the plane's nose, ignored the water station and checked my watch: 9:56. OH my. If I kept this pace, I'd not only smash my PR, I'd break 20, which I hadn't even considered. Could I do it? I had no idea - I was starting to feel the burn, but I wasn't sure how that would play out over the second half. At this point I was glad there had been no mile markers, since I probably would have freaked out and slowed down by now. So I decided to just go with it and see what happened.

With about a 10-second gap ahead of me, I tackled the second half mostly alone. One or two men passed me and I thought about tracking them, but they were clearly on a stronger kick than I was willing to muster given the speed I was already going. As my legs got a little heavy I could tell that I was slowing down a little, but I obviously had no idea by how much, so I focused on keeping my breathing regular and trying to relax my arms. As I exited the runway back onto the path, there was another water station. The kids holding out the cups were really nice - "Water, water!" and then a dejected "...guess not!" when I just ran by. Sorry guys, don't take it personally!

Finally, I could hear the cheers at the end and as I rounded a slight turn I looked up to see the finish line approaching. I started to hear the announcer yell out the clock time - "19:35, 19:40" - and I tried desperately to guess whether or not I could make it under 20, and again the flat distance deceived me - but no matter. I spotted BigIr just ahead of me and Coach Sponge cheering at the sides, and I barreled into the finish. I checked my watch: 20:15 (6:31 min/mi), which not only smashed my old PR by almost 45 seconds, it also fell well below my goal for this race. Yeah!

As the Res Dogs gathered around the finish, someone said to me, "Hey, I think you placed in your age group!" I ran over to check the scores and saw Uptown Girl's name on the list - she came in about a minute after I did - but not mine. Confused, I went to the race organizers; one of the guys turned to check the computer, saw my name, looked back and said like it was the most natural thing in the world, "Uh, you didn't place in your age group 'cause you placed 2nd overall." OH! Wait, what?! Seriously? I think I probably did a little happy dance right there. Woo hoo!!!

By the end of the morning every ResDog had not only put in an awesome performance, they each had an age place award to show for it. Way to go Dogs! I can't wait to run this race again next year... not least because I probably won't be able to touch this PR unless it's on another flat course! Later that day Coach Sponge suggested that the course may have been a teensy bit short - it was a new route this year so no way to compare to previous times - so I'd like to give the distance another shot. But in the meantime, that's my story :-)

I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevation
-U2

And thanks to Peter of the Harriers for the runway shot!