This morning’s race was humbling. My running has been going well lately. My typical run is five miles. It used to be three. I’ve been running 5K’s at nice pace. So, this morning, it felt weird to run past the first mile marker and see that I had run it a minute slower than I usually do.

I feel like I’m getting better acquainted with the whole running races thing. I get there forty-five minutes early and I follow the other people who have numbers affixed to the front of their shirts (it’s surprising how relieved I feel when I see them and I know that I’m not completely lost). This morning I took the N to Central Park and when I got out I followed a man and a woman who seemed to know where they were going. And a line of people had followed behind me and I realized this could very well be a lemmings situation. But we found the race day area with all the tents and bag check and everything. If the race is in Central Park, chances are that all that stuff is by the band shell by Poet’s Walk and the bag check is by the road next to Sheep’s Meadow.

Most people run around and warm up, either on their own or with their running group. Then you hit the port-o-potties. Then we head to the corals to wait for the race to start.

I don’t feel like a newbie anymore, which is cool.

But today I ran slowly, which was disappointing.

I felt good. I felt like I was running as fast as I normally do. I don’t know, maybe it was the heat. But I ran my fastest 5K in worse heat than this. I ran a 10K at a better pace on July 4th and that was humid as hell. Maybe it was an off day. My average mile pace was slower than it was for the half marathon (slower than when I stopped during a 5K to go to the bathroom).

As I came to the end, it started getting really difficult. Around miles 5 and 6, I saw people walking and I said to myself, “just don’t walk.” I didn’t. The important thing is that I ran it and it’s another race that counts toward the marathon.