| tall buildings, bad reception |
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 |
And once again, I did the Wall Street Run with my company (which has become our "in lieu of the Corporate Challenge.") We had 9 signed up...3 (including me) runners, 6 walkers. And actually...as the forecast seemed to change dramatically on Tuesday morning from about 60 degrees and 30% chance of rain to not even 50 degrees and definite rain. So knowing my company's track record w/ inclement weather, I was expecting quite a few to bail... but considering I've done 2 half-marathons in the rain, you can bet I wouldn't!
So after work, I did the same thing I did last year-2 mile warmup down the West Side Highway-more direct than taking the subway and a good way to get a warmup in. It was only raining lightly and actually felt nice!! And I was afraid I would be underdressed (not expecting the weather)...I had on a running skirt and a singlet under a jacket and actually felt warm-so I had a feeling I'd be OK come race time.
Arrived downtown, stashed my bag and headed for the start...oh boy. NO pace per mile markers. This was a recipe for disaster. I found my other 2 colleagues that were running and lined up with them...decent starting position. Was a little chilly waiting for the start (shoulda brought a throwaway shirt!) and not surprisingly, the start was delayed a few minutes waiting for the west side hwy to be closed off, but finally we got going.
So I was hoping to better last year's time (22:51, 7:36 pace) in order to get a better pace for corral placement :-p Had the Garmin on but wasn't really referring to it during the race as anything but a watch. Anyway, the same obstacles were there...potholes, puddles, people who did not line up correctly...however, I hit mile 1 in 7:25 and thought RIGHT ON TRACK!!
And mile 2 seemed to have more issues...more turns, more bottlenecks...especially on one street where half of it was closed off. But I still felt I put up a good effort through this mile...which was why I was surprised that mile 2 was 8:30...what the!! I may have slowed down, but not that much...
Well obviously I had my work cut out for me in mile 3!! Just told myself to suck it up, it's only a mile to go...run hard, hard, hard!! Made the final turn onto the West Side Esplanade by the Hudson River and not too much later...could see the finish line in the distance and kicked it in. Mile 3 was 7:16, for a total time of 23:11.
 Saw Uptown Girl (who had blasted past me around mile 2) after the race and we compared Garmin readings...hers had about 3.4 miles, however, my Mr. Garmin had 2.8!! So who knew what was right...and everyone I talked to after the race seemed to agree. (I do definitely think mile 2 was long...don't know which was the short mile though, 1 or 3.) I was cold and tired, so unlike last year, I didn't feel up for post-race festivities-though I did stop by Urban Athletics for a free Corona and 15% off a Sugoi top (and I thought leaving the credit card at home would stop me from shopping. ha!)
When I exported my Garmin data at home...I had to laugh. Apparently, no one, nothing, knew what the distance of this course was!!
Garmin Training Center said 2.84 miles
SportTracks said 3.12 miles
MotionBased said 3.6 miles (yeah right-like I really did sub-7's)
And if you look at the map...obviously the tall buildings really threw off the GPS signal (hell...there were some places where it said I was going sub-4 pace...in my dreams!!)
So basically, the moral of the story is, I will never really know what I actually ran yesterday...and just chalk it up as a tempo workout, and defending my title of being first in my company :)
And save the PR attempts for certified courses!
And like most men...Mr. Garmin isn't always right :-pLabels: race, running |
posted by nyflygirl @ 1:40 PM  |
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with sportracks you can edit the gps points. if you know the course, you can get a better sense of your true distance and pace.
in either case, well done!
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Really? I'll have to print out the course map and try that out later...still learning about all these GPS data goods :)
Good seeing you after the race yesterday!
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Girl...I was going to congratulate you on your great run until that last sentence...not cool! What I thought you were going to say was "Like most men...Mr. Garmin isn't always WRONG..." Hahaha. But then again, YOU didn't even know the course distance so how do you know he was wrong?! Hmmm...
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hehe...technicalities.
besides...I could have said ALL men.
but I didn't. :)
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Using a garmin on the streets downtown between all the tall buildings is worthless. I never get a signal let alone an accurate reading. Congrats on that last mile!
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yeah, i thought it would be worthless too, but just had to see what the end result would be for laughs. thanks for the congrats, but i'm not even sure that 7:16 was a full mile (since 2 was long)...would be nice if it were though :)
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Good seeing you out there once again. I keep waiting to see if they are going to post the video (and your non Flyers gear! WOAH!).
I posted the GPS photo that I got from my Garmin. It's crazy looking:)
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Have you tried just mapping out the course using gmap-pedometer.com? I find that tends to be pretty accurate.
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Good work! I generally try to save the PR's for the less crowded races.
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uptown girl-heh heh...i think this is the only race that i go incognito for :) i keep checking for the video too :)
chelle-haven't tried it out for this one yet...due to all the turns it will take a lot of careful plotting :)
josh-agreed!!
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with sportracks you can edit the gps points. if you know the course, you can get a better sense of your true distance and pace.
in either case, well done!