Bundled up and ready, the winds kept cutting into whatever portion of skin was left exposed, we jammed packed ourselves into two lanes of huffing and puffing runners. There was a lot of stretching and pulling being down and a lot of just standing still waiting for it all to be over.
Of course, eight hundred yards into the 10K run I realized I had on WAY too much clothing. Rule no 1. of winter running is: if you are warm at the start of a race you are going to boilover before the end. So, a half a mile down the road I stopped, took off my headset, took off my hat, my glasses, and pulled my sweatshirt up over my head, all while about two thousand people trotted by me. Then I took off one of the long sleeve shirt I had on, what was I thinking?
I recovered nicely and clopped around the rest of the park at an easy, hey-look at those beautiful clouds- sort of pace. Still ran it in less time than last year, that's good, but less exciting for me now.
The real challenge for me was to get to work after the run. I had to get my bag from the little fenced off place. (I cut in front of 500 people to get in and get out.) Then, after already running six miles I had to jog over to Central Park West (uphill) and get a cab.
The getting a cab part is always the hardest part. Usually about two hundred runners have the same idea that I have and are out in the street with their hand up, but this Sunday was different. No one was looking for a cab, in fact, there wasn't any traffic on the street at all. For a second or two I thought the street had been closed for some reason and was dreading the run over to Broadway (the next nearest downtown street) but a taxi appeared out of the distance and (after I mumbled something about please go as fast as you can) we caroomed through the Park and around Grand Central to my gym.
Sometimes a hot shower can be electric.
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