New rule: double check the race date

Today's run (Park): 5.15 miles at 8:45 per mile

I was excited about racing today and curious to see how competitive I would be with my new Saucony Kinvara running shoes. Team Emerging Runner arrived at the race location about an hour before the scheduled start. My wife took a look around and said, "We must be at the wrong place, there's no one here." It turned out that were at the right place but at the wrong time because the Brooke Jackman 5K had already taken place on Saturday. I was mad at myself for failing to check the date and assuming the race would happen on a Sunday. Most of my races have been held on Sunday mornings but that's a poor excuse. Seeing that I was upset, my wife quickly suggested that we stay and explore the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park that was just north of the race location. Or more correctly, yesterday's race location. I agreed that a run on a cool spring day overlooking Oyster Bay was a great alternative to a race.

Never having run in this location, I didn't know where the trail would lead. I started by following a paved path that ran parallel to the water. This path eventually looped around to numerous small walking paths that fed back to the main trail. I completed one loop and decided to head west to see if there were any interesting routes in that direction. I eventually ran out of pavement and cut across a sandy section before reaching the road again. Once I saw how far I'd need to go to reach a decent place to run I decided to circle back to the park to find my family. At the 2 mile mark I caught up with my wife and kids, passing them in the other direction as I made my way east. I ended up looping the park a number of times and occasionally passing by my family who were playing at the water side. After 45 minutes we decided to wrap it up and I noticed that I'd covered 5.15 miles at an average of 8:45 per mile. Running conditions were near perfect and there were no hills. The only things that slowed me down were the run through the sand and a couple of sharp turnarounds that reduced my pace. The new Kinvaras are definitely helping and I'm running 20-30 seconds per mile faster than I normally run. A calibration test of my Garmin confirmed the accuracy of these numbers. So how about that!

I really enjoyed today's run, especially because my family was there to cheer me on each time I passed them along my route. It would have been fun to race today but I still had a great morning with the family and a great run by the water.