Race Report: Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run (5M)

Date: June 29th; 8:30 am

Distance: 5mi

Place: Central Park, NY, NY

Weather: 78 F, 71% Humidity (it sure felt warmer than 78 F)

Finishers: 10,236 (4,715 Men/5,521 Women)

Offical time / pace: 54:37 / 10:56min/mi

 

Strava even made the route rainbow-colored in celebration for pride

This race is a yearly race, which is organized by the NY Front Runners, that closes out  LGBTQIA+ Pride Month. Just an FYI, the NY Front Runners is one of my running clubs that I rarely to never run with. Perhaps that will change soon.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

The race was memorable for two reasons. 

1.  It marked the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in NYC during the late 60s ( *** ). With the 10,000+ finishers, this race set a new Guinness World Record title for the largest pride charity run. The previous title was set with 6,000 finishers. I was surprised that the previous record was so low.

2. Too bad things did not go so well for me with this race. My times for my recent races have been pretty sucky as of late, and this race was no exception.  I was looking at some previous races from three years ago, I was running around a 7:30 min/mi pace. Now, I’m lucky if I can hit a 9:30 min/mi pace during a race.  But, whatever, I cannot do much about it now. 

Pre race:

So I thought I was doing everything right. Although we are in the final stretch of Pride Month and my birthday week, I decided not to go out the night before the race. I pretty much stayed home all day (aside from 1.5 hrs at the gym); drank a shit ton of water; ate clean (sushi); went to bed early (1 am early for me); and left the apt an hour before the race.

Hell for this crappy performance, I should have gone out the night before, had some LGBTQ fun, and ran the race hungover . . . like many of my races.

I did ride a Citibike to the start, which may have been a mistake. Since I left the apt an hour before the race and the start was only 2.5mi from my apt, I figured that an easy, leisurely bike ride would be a nice warm up.

I mean, there is a bit of an incline but it was nothing too major. 

By the time I arrived to Central Park, the humidity seemed like it intensified by 30%.  

I was drenched in sweat just waiting in the line to use a portapotty. At that point, I kind of knew that things would not go too well for me in this race. I’m not too sure what’s going on with my body, but I have been overheating quite bit lately. I have not fainted or anything too serious, but it is a bit concerning since I will begin training for the NYC Marathon in a couple of weeks. For example, I’ll take a shower and will be covered in sweat before having a chance to put on my damn clothes. UGH! For now, I just have to stick to drinking even more water on a daily basis. Now, I drink about 3-4 liters of water a day. Perhaps, my body is still acclimating to the summer heat. 

 

Outside of the heat and humidity, I knew this race would be a bit of a challenge because we were doing ALL of the Harlem hills in Central Park. 

At least there was a decline toward the end of the race. 

Race time: 

At the beginning of the race, the announcer mentioned that “today is not a day to PR,” and boy was he right. During the first mile, you could definitely feel that everyone was running pretty cautiously because of the heat. For the first 2.5 miles, I did feel kind of strong. Not great, but I was not a complete mess. After the first hill, I started to feel very lightheaded/dizzy and decided to walk . . . a lot. Most of the east side of Central Park was pretty sunny and bright, and it was quite obvious that my body was overheating.  I pretty much could not recover after this – even once we transitioned into the shadier west side of the Park. I think my mile 3 split was about 13 min. Since I knew that I had a few inclines left after the big hill, I decided to change up my strategy a bit and walked the declines and (slowly) ran the inclines. At every fluid station, I threw 3 – 4 cups of water  (at least) on my head to help cool off. Hell, I may have even screwed up my phone. Since I’m still rocking an iPhone SE, I guess it’s time to get a new phone anyway. 

Even though this was a pride run, I was not very proud of my performance. But hey, I finished . . . barely.

 

Post-Race: 

We were treated to rainbow-colored popsicles to help cool off. 

Twenty minutes after finishing, my forehead was still covered in sweat. Aside from the pride festivities (I did not win any giveaways), it was a pretty miserable day and run.  

Even after finishing my popsicle, I was still pretty much drenched in sweat. Ugh. 

One cool part of finishing the race was having an opportunity to catch up with an old friend that is starting to train for her first marathon (Philly). We have been meaning to have a double date night with our husbands for some time now.  It’s hard to hang out as adults. Actually . . . our apt needs more artwork, so I’m gonna schedule a paint and sip excursion.  

Next up:

NYRR Retro 4-Miler, July 13