I’m not going to bury the lede here or feign any humility. I ran the 5th Avenue Mile this morning in 5:48 and I’m pretty psyched about it. At 41, I’m the fastest I’ve ever been.
The six minute mile seemed unattainable to me. For JV soccer, we once did something called The Cooper Test in which we ran as many laps of the track as we could in twelve minutes. Ideally you’d be able to run eight or more (two sub six minute miles). I think I ran five and a half or six.
But my six minute mile demons go back further. The six minute mile was the gold standard of great times the last time I ran a mile for time: in elementary school.
As a kid, few things made me as nervous as running the New York state mandated mile. I remember doing it in the fourth grade and it was a mile. A mile! To a fourth grader, a mile might as well be a marathon.
It wasn’t so much the distance. It’s not that I though that I couldn’t finish, it’s that I knew I would finish slowly. Our phys ed teacher was an old man named Mr. Lansky who was half Burgess Meredith, half old timey gangster hiding in the suburbs, kind of like a Jewish My Blue Heaven. He was a sweet gut I still didn’t like disappointing him. The athletic kids like Ted Cook and Jason Jones would finish strong and probably do it in six minutes. I, on the other hand would finish in 11 or 12 minutes.* It was humiliating.
But let’s talk about this race today. I got up at 6:45 and it was raining. Today in New York is what I pictured Seattle being like all the time. And for the first time, I left the house without any bags or anything. I went to a running store yesterday and got one of those glorified fanny packs for runners. Now I’m like one of those experienced runners who just shows up and leaves with no excess stuff. I’m all business.
I got out of the subway at Columbus Circle and ran around Central Park slowly just to warm up. This is also something I’ve noticed other runners doing before races. Now I’m doing it. I don’t know why these little sign posts of running experience mean so much to me but they do.
I was feeling a little slow this morning, so, I said to myself, “Just break 7:00. You’ve run that in 5Ks. You can do that.”
The mile heats were grouped by age and gender this time, not by time. The forty somethings were at 9:20AM. I milled around 5th Ave, running a bit to stay warm before joining the sea of early middle age.
I was able to find my friend Fred, which was great. He’s my pretty much my running mentor (and he’s in my improv team). He paced me in the Brooklyn Half and he’s run the marathon a few times. I felt like if I could keep Fred in view, I’d be good.
The start gun went off and off we went.
I looked around and couldn’t see Fred, so, I figured he’d already flown past me but then I saw him to my left. Cool. Just keep up with Fred. At the first quarter he said, “Five fifty!” for our current pace. I figured I’d started too fast and would lose steam in the second half.
But I kind of kept it up. The race adrenaline felt good. In other races, the markers are at each mile. In the mile they were at each quarter, which was great. It broke the race up perfectly for me. By the time I was at the halfway point, I could already see the finish.
I thought I might lose some pace at the end but I think I kept it consistent the whole time. Fred pulled ahead of my but I crossed the finish line and it said 6:06 or 6:07, which I thought was a great time. Fred had been timing on his watch, though and said he got at 5:48! Since I was right behind him, I might have broken six minutes. He later sent me the live results. He got a 5:46, I got a 5:48. You always have to adjust for the fact that you don’t cross the start right at 0:00.
After the race, I took a leisurely run down the west side highway just for the hell of it. I ran down to the West Village / Tribeca area in search of coffee and a bagel. I found a place called Zucker’s in Tribeca, a place that I’d never heard of but looked legit. I had their bacon egg and cheese and their coffee (which was standard bagel store coffee, a little to light, a little too sweet). The more Manhattan bagels I have, the more that I realize that Bagel World on 5th Avenue in Park Slope is the best bagel in the city. I don’t know why I go looking elsewhere all the time.
Also, just for posterity:
