I love a good 15K mainly because its such a freakish distance! I think I have run 3 in the last 4 years or something. They teeter right on the edge of, “Should I train for this” and “It’s only 5 more K than a 10K, I’ll just wing it.”

In order to prepare for the run, I went to watch the Brooklyn Nets play the Pistons the night before in the new Barclay’s Center. Todd, Frank, Cottom and I met up at Smoke Shop (no, it is not a weed store) for some BBQ and beers. The place rocks if you are into ribs.

We easily entered Barclay’s at 7:30 and made our way to our seats. Let’s take a moment to discus Jay’s (Z) new stadium. Jay, hats off! What a fine piece of design it is, with a street level entrance right into the heart of the arena. No climbing stairs for an hour like The Garden. They also have local food vendors like Fatty Cue, Habana Outpost, and Brooklyn Burger! I love this concept.

Why do people in Brooklyn seem more friendly than in Manhattan?

Since this is a race report I wont dwell too much more on the game, but know this… BK Nets won by 2 in double overtime at the buzzer!

So of course we had to celebrate.

RACE DAY

I woke up after my 5 hours of beer fueled sleep feeling pretty beat up. Normally, I can rally but I think I may have caught this flu that’s popping around since I had a sore throat.

I geared up, didn’t eat anything, and jogged off to the Start. Blue Corral was already mobbed, so I just walked in and decided to hang in the back of it, especially since I wasn’t feeling too peppy.

Where the front of the Red Corral met the back of the Blue is where I bumped into Kelly! Hi Kelly. We hung out for a bit goofin’ off before we had to get serious. We also saw Dani off to our left who gave a wave!

The gun went off and I started running, but not too fast as I was behind a large group of speedsters. As we rounded the corner and headed into Cat Hill I flanked the pack on the right and started progressing forward through them. I thought I was going to take it easy but my competitive side always gets the best of me. I wasn’t wearing my Garmin (my new thing and I love doing it) so I was just running by feel. I kinda felt like quitting. In fact, the first 5 miles of the race I thought of ways to quit. My chest hurt and I was so very tired, but I had committed to a race…

I was slamming down water at every aid station. I normally never do this but I was quite parched. Maybe it was the salty barbeque I ate the night before or the 5 million beers or I was getting the flu? Who knows? I don’t, I’m no doctor!

Run, run, run, all I do is run.

By mile 4 we were in race formation, single file and were maybe cooking at a 6:30 pace. I would go on to play leap frog with a few tall fellows. The irony of it, was that I would overtake them on the downhills. You would think that with a larger gait and more body mass they would pick up speed? Maybe they were afraid of tumbling? I also saw Abbe (on her run) who yelled out to me!

As I passed Mile 6 I had entered the point of no ‘giving up’ as this is right by my apartment at Engineer’s Gate. My original plan was to just run off the course instead of doing 2 loops and go home and go to sleep. I must have missed my exit.

Coming down the west side of the Park I actually started to feel good. My pace was steady and my form was doing fine, I wasn’t smashing my legs down or anything like that. As a I turned in to finish I had this feeling of ‘maybe I should do a few more miles’! Then, I thought about sleeping and how wonderful that would be.

I ended up finishing in 58:59, a 24 second PR!

For the rest of the weekend I slept a lot and ended up wiping that wicked bug out of me. Maybe that ol’ 15K even helped!

 QUARANTINE!