rr: boy scouts of america 10th anniversary 5k

i've said it before, and will say it again, the boy scout 5k run in central park is one of the best kept secrets in the new york city running community! this is a small, well-run event, that has the post-race awards ceremony and party at mickey mantles restaurant on central park south! that alone should have runners lined up to register for and run this race! plus, and most importantly, all the money raised goes to charity.

it was my 3rd consecutive bsa 5k race. unfortunately, each year seems to net me a slower time - drats, curses, and swears! not! this event is was way too much fun to worry about finish time! here is the progression (degression):

2006 results: 20:37/6:38 pace - 3rd m40-49 age group.
2007 results: 20:59/6:45 pace - 5th m40-49 age group.
2008 results: 22:58/7:24 pace - 5th m40-49 age group.

but, on a very positive note, emmy won the women's race for the second straight year! in 2006 she had an off day and finished second!

i met emmy at the 72nd street entrance of central park. she had walked down from the nyrr club, where she had just picked up our stuff for the healthy kidney 10k race. at first i wasn't going to fess up to having been at the absinthe tasting on my walk over to the park. but on the walk over to east drive - where we'd meet our friend sal - it slipped out! emmy wanted to turn back and go try the absinthe as well, but not there wasn't enough time (otherwise she'd have jogged over to garnet liquors on 69th and lexington for the tasting)!

sal and emmy both ran warm-ups before the race. i didn't warm-up, but i did hope to run under 22 minutes (slow by comparison to the prior 2 years). the race starts on the 72nd transverse and is almost 2 full laps of the lower park loop. this particular course is rarely used by the nyrr in its races, but was the walk course for at last month's tgl run as one events. for most of the first loop emmy and i ran together, but when headed north on west drive to emmy took off. while i finished the first full loop strong, i had little left for the second, shorter one.

after the race emmy, sal (and his friend from the nj road runners) walked down to central park south together. they skipped the party at mickey mantles, but we'll see sal again at the healthy kidney 10k. at the restaurant we sat with a young couple who, it turned out, we had a lot in common with! not only did they run ultras, but we knew many of the same people from the local running clubs! it turned out that chris was the overall winner of the race and bea was the second place woman finisher!

after the great food, beer, and awards ceremony i looked at my watch to discover it was well after 9 and i had a metronorth train to catch. the next train left grand central at 9:30 - and i had about 10-15 minutes to get from 59th street between 7th and 6th avenues down to 42nd and park avenue! walking wouldn't work - so in a rare act of post-race speed work, put on my pack and ran most of the 1+ mile distance to grand central. i arrived with 3 minutes to spare!

check out my race photos.
here is my 2007 race report.