Running with the Bulls

The Health and Fitness Games Four Mile for Men was yesterday morning and it was a glorious day. I don't use that term often, but yesterday was about as perfect a day, running or otherwise as you could have. The temperature was 71 degrees and no wind. I had to go into work after the race so I lugged my fanny pack with my change of clothes over to the baggage area and then proceeded to stretch.

I've been really worried lately about my right knee. It's never really recovered from the Half Marathon, meaning that it's been a little tight. There has been some pain, but mostly stiffness that never seemed to go away. So about a week ago I started looking up all the remedies for knees and the Internet came through big time. I found a number of stretches that I had forgotten and got a good routine to do before and after running. Ice is good. Quad Stretch is good. Side Stretch is very good.

Anyway on the morning of the race, no tenseness, at least not in the right knee, but the rest of me was a bundle of nerves wondering if at the three mile mark something would blow up.

This race was just for men. (Twelve women ran with us. Beats me why, maybe they wanted to do two races that morning, good for them.) The testosterone level was evident in at least two ways: 1) everyone pushed up a mile per minute or so in the starting place. The ten minute milers were all up in the six minute mile slot. Even the starter was laughing about how many runners were near the start in the five minutes per mile. He said "You know, guys, that is supposed to mean that you can do all four miles at a five minute pace, not just one." I was happily situated in the ten minute slot. I had "The End of the World as We know It" for a start song and I kept telling myself that I just wanted to well, not kill the course record.

Well, 2) unlike races with men and women, this all men's race was all business. Women like to talk to each other and to men as they run. I will be churning along at as fast as I can go and three women will pass me all chatting about just returning from the Jersey Shore. Nothing like that happened in this race.

From the moment the horn sounded it was run, buddy, run. My split for the first mile with the music blasting was just at NINE minutes. Please recall that this is the same guy who was doing 11:55s just two weeks ago. I ignored the water stops, they are always a mess by the time I get there and everytime I spoke to my right knee it said it was just dandy.

The course was perfect for a fast time because we started by climbing Cat Hill and then made the loop around to finish at 68th Street which except for a short hill up to the reservoir is a downhill finish.

So I crossed the line at 37:15 net time which is a PR for me (at least since I started running again last year) 9:18 pace.

Um. Wow for me. Even starting way in the back still finished ahead of about half of my age group and three hundred or so men will still huffing their way around the course while I was going to get my goodie bag from Fitness Magazine.

And the good news is that I have hardly any tenseness in the knee. Remarkable what actually following a training regime will do for you.