Race Report: 2022 Achilles Hope & Possibility 4M

DATE: June 26, 2022; 8:15 am

DISTANCE: 4 MI

PLACE: Manhattan (Central Park), NY

WEATHER: 78 DEGREES, 64% HUMIDITY, CALM WIND

OFFICIAL TIME / PACE: Who cares? / who cares

FINISHERS: 6,715

SWAG: Tech t-shirt

Quick stats:

Courtesy of NYRR

Summary:

A little deja vu, huh? Yup, in an effort to get as many 9+1 races out of the way before I leave NYC, I “ran” two races over the weekend.

A little information about this race:

Celebrate disability inclusion at the 20th annual Achilles Hope & Possibility® 4M Presented by TD Bank on Sunday, June 26. By racing, you help support Achilles International’s mission to break down barriers to the start line for athletes with disabilities and empower athletes to cross the finish line. The race leads into July’s Disability Pride Month and the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

New York Road Runners (NYRR)

I’m gonna say that finishing this race was a bit bittersweet because this was my last NYRR (or NYC race) until NYC Marathon. That is if I can return to NYC to run the marathon in Nov.

The course for the race pretty much was the same as FRNY Pride Run’s course that was held on the previous day, so I guess there were no surprises for Sunday. 😉

After Sunday’s race, I think that my Apple Watch is on the fritz because once again it did not log my miles until I reached the E90s. Similar to the Pride Run, I decided to jog/walk from a local park in the W 120s to the start line in the E 60s before starting the race.

Don’t you hate it when technology fails?

For Achilles Hope & Possibility Run, I did yet another type of interval run similar to the previous day’s Pride Run. I did hard sprints for 200 m and jogged/walked as recovery for 400 m. This probably was not a great idea since the race tends to have many runners with disabilities and their assistants. Doing fast sprints near the back of the pack meant having to weave in and out of crowds of runners. Do not get me wrong, I’m not saying that I had a problem with disabled runners in this race especially because this race is supposed to celebrate them. I’m just saying that I probably should have done the hard interval runs during the previous day’s race instead.

I gotta say that I was quite surprised that we received medals upon completing the race, which was a nice NYRR going-away gift. Also, it was cool to find out that this race has been around for 20 years.

Also, this race gave me an opportunity to check off another category for The Runchat’s scavenger hunt. For this one, I checked off Animals (of any kind!). While I used the cougar sculpture on Cat Hill, the category did not say that the animal had to be a living creature 😉

It’s nice when the virtual and real world collide.

While running the race, or maybe I was doing a recovery jog at that point, I felt some tap my back and shoulder. It turns out that it was one of my Twitter friends – meaning that we only communicated via Twitter (primarily through The Run Chat). After the race, he found me again, and we chatted for a few minutes.

A little post-race fun:

Since I was a bit in recovery mode from my birthday shenanigans, I decided to have a simple post-race breakfast at a local greasy spoon restaurant. Although I took it easy for my birthday this year, I did have quite a few cocktails, glasses of wine, and pints of beer throughout the day. After my post-race breakfast, I gave my feet some much-needed TLC with a nice soak and decrusting.

Playlist:

The same playlist that I used for the previous day’s Pride Run.

Question(s) of the Day:

-Have you ever met someone from social media? How did it go?

-How did your weekend go?

-How do you pamper yourself after a race or an intense workout?

Social Media Plug:

Instagram

@smokinscientist (Twitter)

Kwame s (Strava)