Race Report: 2022 Achilles Hope & Possibility 4M

DATE: June 26, 2022; 8:15 am

DISTANCE: 4 MI

PLACE: Manhattan (Central Park), NY

WEATHER: 78 DEGREES, 64% HUMIDITY, CALM WIND

OFFICIAL TIME / PACE: Who cares? / who cares

FINISHERS: 6,715

SWAG: Tech t-shirt

Quick Stats:

Courtesy of NYRR

Summary:

A little deja vu, huh? Yup, in an effort to get as many 9+1 races out of the way before I leave NYC, I "ran" two races over the weekend.

A little information about this race:

“Celebrate disability inclusion at the 20th annual Achilles Hope & Possibility® 4M Presented by TD Bank on Sunday, June 26. By racing, you help support Achilles International’s mission to break down barriers to the start line for athletes with disabilities and empower athletes to cross the finish line. The race leads into July’s Disability Pride Month and the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

— New York Road Runners (NYRR)

I'm gonna say that finishing this race was a bit bittersweet because this was my last NYRR (or NYC race) until NYC Marathon. That is if I can return to NYC to run the marathon in Nov.

The course for the race pretty much was the same as FRNY Pride Run's course that was held on the previous day, so I guess there were no surprises for Sunday. ;)

After Sunday's race, I think that my Apple Watch is on the fritz because once again it did not log my miles until I reached the E90s. Similar to the Pride Run, I decided to jog/walk from a local park in the W 120s to the start line in the E 60s before starting the race.

Don't you hate it when technology fails?

For Achilles Hope & Possibility Run, I did yet another type of interval run similar to the previous day's Pride Run. I did hard sprints for 200 m and jogged/walked as recovery for 400 m. This probably was not a great idea since the race tends to have many runners with disabilities and their assistants. Doing fast sprints near the back of the pack meant having to weave in and out of crowds of runners. Do not get me wrong, I'm not saying that I had a problem with disabled runners in this race especially because this race is supposed to celebrate them. I'm just saying that I probably should have done the hard interval runs during the previous day's race instead.

I gotta say that I was quite surprised that we received medals upon completing the race, which was a nice NYRR going-away gift. Also, it was cool to find out that this race has been around for 20 years.

Also, this race gave me an opportunity to check off another category for The Runchat's scavenger hunt. For this one, I checked off Animals (of any kind!). While I used the cougar sculpture on Cat Hill, the category did not say that the animal had to be a living creature ;)

Not sure if this is snow or snot.

It's nice when the virtual and real world collide.

While running the race, or maybe I was doing a recovery jog at that point, I felt some tap my back and shoulder. It turns out that it was one of my Twitter friends - meaning that we only communicated via Twitter (primarily through The Run Chat). After the race, he found me again, and we chatted for a few minutes.

A little post-race fun:

Since I was a bit in recovery mode from my birthday shenanigans, I decided to have a simple post-race breakfast at a local greasy spoon restaurant. Although I took it easy for my birthday this year, I did have quite a few cocktails, glasses of wine, and pints of beer throughout the day. After my post-race breakfast, I gave my feet some much-needed TLC with a nice soak and decrusting.

Playlist:

The same playlist that I used for the previous day's Pride Run.

Race Report: Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run 4M (Copy)

DATE: June 25, 2022; 8:30 am (my birthday)

DISTANCE: 4 MI

PLACE: Manhattan (Central Park), NY

WEATHER: 71 DEGREES, 76% HUMIDITY, CALM WIND

OFFICIAL TIME / PACE: Who cares? / who cares

FINISHERS: 7,202

SWAG: Tank top, rainbow bagels, rainbow popsicles

Quick Stats:

Courtesy of NYRR

Summary:

Who's got PRIDE? We've got pride. I guess this really is not an actual report, but more of a brief summary.

Another year, another Pride Run 4 mi (it used to be 5 mi) - a race sponsored by NYRR and Front Runners NY (FRNY, one my running groups). This was going to be a simple race just to get back into the flow of things before starting my NYC Marathon training program on Monday.

While the expo was nice and pretty straight to the point, it gave me a chance to check out Industry City, which has been described as a creative workspace where folks can eat, drink, shop, and explore. After I picked up my race stuff, I figured that I would check out all (or most of) what Industry City had to offer.

Overall, I went into the race without any real goals or major accomplishments to achieve since this was my first race since April. My mental state for this race was to run/jog/walk for the sake of having fun. I will say that it did feel nice to kinda-sorta race. In fact, I woke up extra early (y'all know that's rare for me on race days) so I could walk and jog to the start. For the actual race, I cycled between running and walking 0.5 mi.

A couple of things that make you go hmmmmm:

When technology fails

Has this happened to anyone with an Apple watch? For Saturday's race, I decided to do a very easy jog from a local park in my neighborhood to the race's start (about 4 miles). I started my watch at W120 street, but it did not start registering my mileage until E 96th Street. The distance between these two points is about 1.5 miles. I hope that might watch is not on the fritz; I wonder if it means it's time to upgrade to a new Apple Watch. Perhaps, that could be a birthday gift to me.

My LGBT+ running group

Not sure if this is snow or snot.

As part of the FRNY Pride Run tradition, we take a team photo after the race (below).

In addition to the large group photo, the club takes pictures of the smaller subgroups within the club (eg the various subcommittees, gay Asians, gay Latinos, women, non-binary, etc.). So someone asked me if I was going to do the Black gays photo. To which, I was like which Blacks? Is it just going to be me in the photo? I later learned that there were about 8 Black members in the Black team member photo. Before you ask why I was not in that photo, I did not near the president announce our photo because I was on the phone with a couple of folks who were wishing me a happy birthday. Eh next time . . . I guess. While this sounds like a rant, which I do not mean to do. I will say the group has been working on its DEI efforts.

A little post-race fun:

While waiting for the husband to meet me at a local spot for brunch, I treated myself to a refreshing screwmosa (vodka + mimosa).

In terms of birthday celebrations, it was pretty chill . . . just like I wanted it to be. After brunch, we went to a wine bar, watched Jurassic World: Dominion, went to a friend's wedding reception in Brooklyn Park, then had dinner. Oh, we went home and continued my Jaws marathon. Random trivia: Every year around my birthday, I watch Jaws and its sequels. Oh (part II), I was a bit disappointed with Jurassic World, and I hope this is the last one. Also, in this day in age, no action movie needs to be longer than two hours.

Pride Run Playlist:

NYC Marathon Training Wk 0

NYC Marathon 2022 #6

All righty, it's that time of year again . . . Getting off my ass and start training for NYC Marathon 2022. It feels a little early, but Nov. 6, 2022 will be right around the corner in no time.

Since I have not really been putting a lot of effort into running lately, I think that I'm going to train for this marathon as a beginner. Well . . . a beginner in the physical, flabby, chain-smoker sense. As I move through my training calendar, I will start planning some goals for this marathon. Speaking of my training calendar, I'm going with Hal Higdon's Marathon Training Plan: Novice 2. I've already added the training plan to my Google Calendar, and we'll begin on June 27, 2022.

Image from Hal Higdon Training (Link ***)

Since I have to be difficult, I will make some minor adjustments to the training. For instance, Wednesdays will be dedicated to running workouts focused on speed runs, race pace runs, tempo runs, Yasso 800s, and VO2-max runs. While June 27, 2022 officially is my training start day, I'll technically start this weekend because I am running the FRNY Pride Run (4M) on Saturday and Achilles Hope & Possibility (4M) on Sunday. I have a feeling that I'll probably walk one of these races. Let's see where the weekend will take me.

A little positivity that I saw on my block after this morning's (very) easy run.

Birthday Week

I guess it's almost time to add another candle to the old birthday cake. June 25 will mark yet another birthday (ugh). I will be honest and say that I'm not really in the mood to celebrate my birthday this year with planning a major move and having to find a new job. You know, I think that I'm getting to the age (maybe it's my personality) where I do not really feel the need to celebrate my birthday. I'm fine with celebrating other folks' birthdays, but I'm like whatever when it comes to mine. Maybe that will change for the "more important" birthdays - you know, the ones that come in multiples of fives. The hubby and two friends did have dinner the other night, and the restaurant gave up an order of their specialty doughnuts. I think the waiter heard us talk about birthdays. For our group, we have this connection: Friend A's husband's birthday (6/23), my birthday (6/25), Friend A's birthday (7/4), and hubby's birthday (7/26).

Starting from Scratch + A Life Update

Ok, so running has been a little ho hum for the past few weeks. While I have not been running super hard, I have been doing very easy daily jogs and walks. I think that I’m at about 4-5 miles a day. However, I will admit most of these workouts have been “speed” walking. One of my 2022 goals was to run 2022km, but I think that I can still meet this goal if I run/jog/speed walk ~4 miles a day.

I think that I’m going to use this off time for the next couple of weeks to get my mind right before starting my training plan for NYC Marathon 2022. Right now, I think that I will officially start training for NYC Marathon on July 1, which will give me about four months to get ready for NYCM. Because I’m a nut and really want to hit the ground running (pun intended), I plan to run two races during my birthday weekend.

We have the LGBT Pride Run (4M; June 25, my birthday) and Achilles Hope & Possibility (4M; June 26). I think running a couple of races will get me back into racing and training mode. However, there is another reason for running these two races over the course of one weekend. As some may know, an easy way to run NYC Marathon is to run nine New York Road Runners (NYRR) sponsored races and volunteer for one race. I really need to start doing as many of these 9 races as possible because . . .

Life Update

Kwablo (Kwame + Pablo; my and my husband’s names) is leaving the Big Apple. Yup, you read this correctly, we’re leaving NYC in about a month. Because of some family commitments, I think that life would be easier in Hampton Roads, VA (my hometown). While I have been in NYC physically, I really have been mentally and emotionally in VA for the past few months. Regarding NYRR’s 9+1 program for NYC Marathon 2023, I need to fit in as many races as I can before we leave in the middle of July. I wonder if I can run a race on the same day that will pack the moving truck? With these two races, I’ll have five out of nine races completed. Also, NYC M will count as one of the nine races so that will be six. Since I hope to be in NYC during marathon weekend, I could register for Abbot Dash to the Finish Line 5K, which is held the day before the marathon, which will bring me to seven out of the nine races. Now, I need to figure out how/when I will fit in the other two races. Perhaps, NYRR has some 9+1 virtual races . . . although I’m not a huge fan of paying for virtual races. Also, I guess we can come up to NYC for a runcation long weekend sometime between August and November and/or between November and December. After this year, I guess I will start running for charity if I plan on running future NYC Marathons.

Although it might be easier to deal with my family situation in VA, I will be honest and say that I’m going to miss the f*ck out of New York. Yes, I know that I have complained about NYC . . . A LOT over the past few months. Hey, it’s the city that we love to hate. This move will be tough because I’ve spent more time living in New York City than I have in my hometown. I pretty much left Va Beach in July 1998 for college and have not returned since except for the holidays. Come to think of it, this July 2nd will be my 20th anniversary in NYC. I hope that I’m ready for the drastic change of life (ie the fast pace of NYC to the slower pace of the Hampton Roads area in VA).