NYRR 6K Jingle Bell Jog Prospect Park, Brooklyn NY

The last of my 9 NYRR races for the year!

After work on Friday, we drove out to visit our friends in Brooklyn and spent the night at their place. Such a good time, I wish we would do this more often.
Instead of driving to the race and trying to search for parking. We took the subway. It probably took us 50-60 minutes or so to get to the race. 30-40 min of that was spent walking. It was a really beautiful morning and so it was really a nice way to get the day started.

Once again, I knew I wasn't ready to be in my assigned corral. (I haven't run since the race last Sunday. I'm still taking antibiotics) Deciding where to start is tricky tho. I think this race is a little smaller, so I decided to just put myself in the middle of the 2nd corral.
Once we made the first turn, it was obvious to me that I should have gone back another group. I was being passed, non-stop for awhile. (It reminded me of my bike at Timberman once I threw in the towel on that ride.) Eventually, the passfest stopped and I was in a group that it seemed I could hang with.

Somewhere around mile 2, I guy in a x-mas tree costume is running by me. For whatever reason, I thought to myself, "I can't let a X-mas tree pass me". So I turned it up a notch and started to follow him. As it turns out, the tree was faster than I was today. I then started to look for some other targets to keep me moving.

Well the next one worth mentioning was an older guy just ahead of me with about 600-400m to go. As I went by him (slowly), I think he got a look at my grey hair and he put me into his age group, because he was determined to stay with me. Eventually I got a number of steps ahead of him. I actually thought to myself as I was running towards the finish, "don't look back to see where he is". Turns out I didn't need to. They have a chip reader out ahead of the finish line so they can announce people as they reach the finish. Just after I crossed the line, the announcer called out "77 year old, John Doe". Dang! He's got 36 years on me! I sure hope I can still move like that at 77!
I'm really not joking about this guy thinking that I might have been stealing his Age Group win, it's happened to me before. (Tewksbury 5 miler report.)
If I was thinking, I would have turned around and talked with him, but the finish line at an 8 min/mile pace starts to really get crowded in a hurry. So they volunteers are doing their best to move people forward so that people can get to the timing mat at the finish.

So I finished on a 7:56 min/mile pace this morning. I really expected to run closer to 9 min/miles. The fact that I put myself into the faster corral pushed me around the course.
I'll have to keep this in mind when I get myself back into shape. When I'm feeling good, I'll make a point of getting to the very front of my corral. I really think it would help get the best performance out of me.

So what's next? Figuring out what's up with my right foot is at the top of my list. I've got my triathlon training calendar fairly well planned out all the way to the first 70.3 in June. Now it's just a matter of getting healthy and motivated again.

Video of the race start.