I flew out for NYC at 6:00am this morning, so my scheduled run had to come later this afternoon. When I originally found out I needed to be in New York today and tomorrow, I really didn’t think I’d have much time to run at all. I told John last week that I might be able to squeeze in runs Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning.
To accommodate my travel, John moved some things around a bit and only had me down to do 40-minute easy runs today and tomorrow and a 70 minute easy run for Friday after I get back. However, by mid-afternoon today I knew my meetings were going to finish early, so I texted John about doing the 70-minute run today and moving the 40-minute to Friday. He gave me the ok, so I got ready and headed down to the Hudson River Park Greenway around 4:30pm.
It was nice to have milder weather than I’m used to in Nashville. The temps were around 73º with overcast skies and a light rain. The humidity was really high, but it still felt better than Tennessee. I started the run just above Battery Park at the south end of Manhattan and headed north on the greenway. From the first step I felt really, really good. My first two miles were both 8:10 splits, and then every one after that was under 8:00…
This was one of those days where I felt like I could run forever. I got into a rhythm quickly, and just continued to feel better and better throughout. After spending so much time running in parks and residential areas this year, it was a nice change of pace to have a good urban run in my second favorite city. I’ve never run on this greenway before, but it was really nice (aside from the occasional NYC pungent smell).
I made it as far north as West 48th Street before turning around and heading back south to the financial district. The really neat thing about the return trip was getting to see the rising One World Trade Center tower for almost the entire way. Very inspiring.
I ended the run staring across the harbor at the Statue of Liberty in all her glory. In total I finished just barely under 9-miles in 70 minutes at an average pace of 7:50 per mile. I’m really excited about how good I’ve felt this week, and that is a BIG confidence boost.
Beast Mode…ON!