Running in Central Park

I was in New York City this weekend for a wedding and had the opportunity to go for a really nice run in Central Park with a friend who is training for her first half marathon. I’d only been to New York City once before and it was a very brief 1-day business trip, so I was pretty excited to see Central Park amongst other sites.

Although the longest I’d previously run in my VFFs had been less than 2 miles, I thought I’d give it a shot and run a 5 mile workout with B and our New York friend. The pace was going to be slower than I’ve been used to (about a 12-minute pace), so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see if I could handle a longer amount of time on my feet with the barefoot style.

I had a little bit of tightness in my Achilles almost from the start (my left moreso than my right), but I kept running anyway and felt great at the end. I ended up breaking loose a bit for the last mile and ran that closer to a 7:30 pace. The run was really great with perfect, cool weather and the scenery was awesome (lots of people watching!).

I was quite sore that night (Friday) and I’m still fairly sore in my Achilles right now, but no blisters at all! I had a lot of fun going a little longer and I’m glad I did it. I took yesterday off and just went out for a quick 15 minute run this evening to try to shake out. My plan is to get another couple of short runs in this week and try to do another mile time trial on the weekend.

If you ever get a chance to spend some time in New York City, you definitely ought to try to make it out for a run in Central Park. Aside from the wedding itself, it was the highlight of our weekend. It’s a toss-up between the run in Central Park and the pizza we had at Lombardi’s:

Lombardi's Pizza