It’s good to enjoy a race with little at stake now and then. Tonight was such a race. It was the Van Cortlandt Track Club’s annual 2 X 2 relay, consisting of two folks doing 2 miles each.
For this, I enlisted Ari as my partner. He agreed and then asked whether it was cross-country. Indeed it is, I told him, and he got to do his first such race, and said afterward that he’d like to come back.
From Twitter, I knew of a number of others that would be there, and also met some other folks that I know. I finally got to meet Helen, Robert’s better half (which is saying a lot; Robert ran the Leadville Trail Marathon on Saturday and a Firecracker 5K on Sunday in Colorado). Amy C (@runamyrun) was there and she introduced me to a number of others.
It’s pretty basic. The first runner heads out around the flats to the cowpath and up then down Cemetery Hill, with the final 1/2 along the flats. A slap of the hands and the second runner’s off and does the same thing. Ari went first.
It’s just a fun thing. Male, female, co-ed teams. All ages, all sorts of runners. I elected to run in spikes. It’s been warm recently, but today was not nearly like the last few. I planned on playing it by ear, deciding if I would go hard when the race began.
Ari came in. I went out. I hadn’t really warmed up so I felt terrible for the first quarter mile or so. One guy went whizzing past me and I slowly passed a whole bunch of people. I started feeling OK at about the 1/2 mark and pushed it relaxed-but-hard for the balance of the race. From that point on, I actually felt good.
And the point was that this was an enjoyable Thursday night run in the Bronx. Van Cortlandt itself is a real melting-pot kind of place, all sorts of different ethnic groups hanging out, playing games.
As I knew a goodly number of people in the race, it was fun to hang with them, do a short warm-down. Most of them got muffins, the award for VCTC’s races. Ari and I, alas, went home empty-handed.
Two weeks until the next 5K there. A little work between now and then, and we’ll see.
Here’s a recording I made before the race, another of the where-I-run series.
6 comments
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July 9, 2010 at 7:47 am
Amy C
Ahhh, i love VCP.
Great run last night, I kept you in sight for the first 1/4 mi or so but then you were outta there! Nice work.
July 9, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Flo
My friend Audra ran it with her girlfriend and they won first woman’s team. I told her you had video of the race (before I’d actually looked at it) so she came here to see and recognized her bag in the video as well as her friend.
Sounds like a really fun race. Glad you were able to feel better as your bit progressed.
July 9, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Paul Thompson
I love those vids Joe!
July 10, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Team Eh Wins Muffins « To Badwater
[...] Helen wanted to run first, so Helen ran first. Meanwhile, I chatted with Warren Street teammate Joe, GMR teammate Amy, and then with Frank about his upcoming Vermont 100. 13 minutes and 17 seconds [...]
July 10, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Robert James Reese
It was good chatting with you before the race, Joe. Glad you had fun up there. You’re right, it was “a fun thing.” I’d never run a relay before (with the exception of those 12-person New England varieties, of course) and it was cool having the race mattering to someone besides just me — I ran faster than I think I would have been able to otherwise. Glad it decided to cool down for us a bit too. That would have been a very race on Monday…
July 11, 2010 at 4:43 am
Ewen
I love the look of that park Joe. If they play cricket and Aussie Rules (our version of Irish football), I’m up for it! Looks like it was a fun day of low-key racing.
By the way, we saw the movie City Island last week, which was filmed on City Island – part of the Bronx. I’d like to get down there and check it out when we’re in NYC next year.