Wall Street Run

I ran another race this evening, It was NYRR's Wall Street Run.  It was a 3 miles race through downtown NYC.  Three miles is a short distance for me (well, if I was running regularly) so I decided I wanted to try and run fast.  I was shooting for a good time.  I run at a pace close to 8min/miles, but usually for 5-6 miles.  I knew I could most likely run under 7min/mile, so that was my goal. There was 5,565 people in the streets running.  The gun sounded and getting started was the hardest part.  It was so crowded, you had to be careful not to trip over everyone else.  It took at least a quarter mile to get spread out enough that you weren't bumping into others, it remained crowded the whole race, it was hard to pass people.  In other races I have been too conservative in the beginning.  I didn't want to do that again, especially since it was only three miles, I took off as hard as I could.  I'm not at the very top of my game.  I haven't been running much because of travel and a hurt toe.  I got to the 1 mile mark and was already feeling it.  I was definitely pushing myself hard.  I wasn't in trouble, but I started to psych myself out a bit.  So I started reciting a mantra in my mind, "long strides, slow breath"  I would take three steps on each word, long 1,2,3 strides 1,2,3, slow 1,2,3 breath 1,2,3.  I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do, but it calmed me and my breathing down, so it worked in this case and I "waltzed" through the rest of the run.  My knee and toe were bothering me a bit, but I ignored them.  I'm icing them both now as I write this. 

I ended up with a time of 20:04 minutes. (Stupid 4 sec, lol.)  Placing 265 out of 5,565. I was 63rd in my age category.  

If I'm gonna keep doing races I need to find some proper training, I push myself too hard to still be winging it.