Sports Authority/Asics 5m run

A total of two runs in two weeks.  I'm pathetic.

Not so pathetic as to miss the chance for a group run, however.

On Monday, you read about one of my two runs, the one I took last week with my friend Ian.  Today, I'll treat you to the other run I did in two weeks, which was a 5m fun run hosted by Sports Authority and sponsored by Asics.

Let me preface this by saying that I love group runs.  I love running with other people.  I also do like running by myself, but for long runs or variety or just socializing, you can't beat a group run.  But, and this is a refrain you've heard me repeat before, ever since I moved to New York I'm just too slow.  In particular I'm too slow for group runs.  This isn't so much because I've slowed down (although I have...) as it is because New York is New York.  When you hear that it's a "fast paced" city, you can apply that to its runners as well as its women everything else.

When I heard that Asics was sponsoring a group run, I decided to go for it.  Their Bryant Park store sponsored a series of runs last year, and I participated in one of them.  It was fun and all inclusive and I got free breakfast and some gloves - win!  This year I conned talked two friends into joining me, and we met at the 6th Avenue store at 8:45am.

The short: If you're free Saturday, do this group run.  They ran along the West Side Highway down to Chambers St. and back and then had free breakfast afterwards.  Everyone took home a technical running hat, gloves, a water bottle, and a winter hat in a recyclable bag with coupons, and they did a raffle for free running shoes, as well.

The long(er):  As usual, I had trouble with the pacing.  Yes, it's taper time, so my friends and I were taking it somewhat easy.  We didn't have a time/pace goal, but my Garmin later told me that we were doing 10:xx miles (with some stop-and-go from lights toward the beginning and end).  That's not unreasonably slow for me for an easy run, but the rest of the group was back at the store about 10 minutes before us.  The group had three pacers: one for sub-8s, one for 8:30s, and one for the rest.  Although we passed some people while we were out there, they must have turned around early because we came back to the store DEAD LAST.  Not only did the "slow" pacer not wait for us on the course, but they were about to start the raffle when we got back.  We took the last three bottles of water, and a Sports Authority employee dug up some remaining goodie bags for us.

All's well that end's well.  I'd do it again.  I could complain about being slow, but I feel like I've been complaining a lot lately, and ultimately I had a good run with good friends and I love my new hat.  A legitimate complaint would be that the first diner we went to afterwards was closed because, you know, someone had been shot dead in there earlier that morning.  The second diner brought me the wrong omelette and it took me half of the Mexican omelette to realize for certain that those were jalapeños and not chunks of avocado.