Oakley Mini 10K

This race has pretty much turned into one of my favorite NYRRs (not that I'm bias to the branding this year- even though it's amazing! Whatever you're doing with branding, NYRR, please for the love of all things holy, keep it up!). 

The course starts on Central Park West- when else can you run up CPW on the street?!, it goes up the easier side of Harlem Hill and you get sweet medal with a carnation at the end?! Done. Sign me up every year until I can't go anymore. 

The theme of the day for me was grateful:

For Central Park. This race reminded me how cool it is that my base camp for training is THE Central Park. It's easy to forget when literally every local race you run is NYRR and it's always some variation of the different loops. For many runners, it's a specific dream/goal to run through this beautiful, famously huge, park. Every year, I've known at least one person who comes from out of town to run this specific race. We also met a lady on the course from Sweden- Sweden! It's funny how to universe sends you little messages not to take things for granted. I totally understood that, especially as the weather turned out to be gorgeous.

For remembering what it felt like to be a new runner. It was also one of my co-worker's first race. She had just started building up her miles when I told her about this race, months ago (what a perfect race for your first one, right?). She decided to sign up and got another one of her friends to, also. It was lots of fun talking her through all of the pre-race stuff all week. Another  coworker (and veteran runner) and I tried very hard to tell her all the rules- no cotton, no racing in the race tshirt, vaseline/body glide is going to be your best friend, running belts are for your stuff, not your bra, etc. I could see it was overwhelming and I just hoped the important things stuck. She ended up having a great race and telling us she understood why we told her about the vaseline and now knows how exciting it is to get a medal. We definitely see a half marathon in her future, even if she doesn't. It was nice to see the race from a fresh pair of running eyes. Sometimes it's easy to forget someone else's marathon, might be your 10k. 

For A-mazing friends. Since this was another A-team adventure, of course there is a story! On Friday, I got a text from Ms. Banana asking what was going on with the weather because her flight had been delayed. When we made plans to run the race, I didn't even realize she'd be flying in (or out of the country for that matter!) so close to the race! About 10 minutes before our set meet up time, I realized I should've sent her a text earlier to make sure she was awake. So, I called. And called. And freaked out a little bit. Then she finally answered. She had literally been in a cab from the airport at the time, threw her bags to her doorman and ran across the park to meet me. Working off of a couple of hours of sleep, my running partner rocked the entire 6.2! I totally have to give her a HUGE shout out for that, because I'll be honest, I would've stayed in bed! There were a couple of rough spots, but what's the point of a running partner if not to help each other out? We had never been so happy to finish a 10k. 

We hung around the post party for the raffle before brunch. There was an Oakley tent where you could get your picture taken with the official tape the winner went through, instagram photos of yourself in the Oakley sunglass line to win a pair (fingers crossed!) and ladies on podiums modeling Oakley's newest active wear. There was also another tent (the sponsor escapes me now, but I know it was a hospital) with yoga mats and foam rollers- how genius! I wish every race had this! 

It turned out to be a serious beautiful day celebrating women and running in New York City.

Whats your favorite race?