Despite my rumblings and grumblings about last year's Corporate Challenge, I found myself heading to Central Park with approximately 50 of my work colleagues. I was hoping this year would be better. Not only would this year's race be chip timed, but a loosely formed corral system was instituted. A red sticker (under 7:00/mile) on your bib got you all the way to the front, a yellow sticker (7:00 - 8:00/mile) put you right behind the red corral, and then everyone else. I'm not quite sure how it happened but I had a a red sticker on my bib. My co-worker, JN, also had a red sticker so we decided to run together. We crossed the start line about 20 - 25 seconds after the horn sounded. Because we were close to the front, JN and I were able to settle into a comfortably hard pace pretty early on. Mile 1, which was mostly uphill on the west side, was 6:56. JN and I were feeling pretty good, so we pushed a little harder and clicked mile 2 in 6:46. Perhaps we pushed a too hard to soon because we both had trouble during mile 3. Our mile 3 split was 7:16. As we passed mile 3, JN said to me "if you have anything left, now is the time to let loose." The good thing about this course is the last half mile takes the runners down Cat Hill, past the Boathouse and into the finish on the 72nd Street Transverse. I didn't have that much left, but I picked up the pace on the way down Cat Hill and covered the rest of course in 3:57.
Official time: 24:52 (7.06 average pace). I finished 8th on my team. It was nice to see so many colleagues participating. Some mentioned to me that my running inspired them to come out and try and run the 3.5 mile course. It was humbling to hear as I am just your average mid-pack runner. I told them that there is a group at the office that goes out for lunch time runs and invited them to come along. I hope they take me up on it.
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