Winning!

My apologies to Charley Sheen for the title, but remember that guess-your-time run I mentioned on Wednesday? Well, I "won." Before I tell you how close my guess was, let's talk about how awesome the overall run was.

Everyone met up at the 14th Street Park. Since this run was posted on the National Running Day website we got a ton of first-timers to join us. Out of the 30 or so people who showed up, at least half were new to the team. The captains made sure nobody was wearing a watch and we made our way to the Hudson River Greenway. The course was simple: two-miles out (downtown), and two miles back (uptown). I predicted 32:00 as my time since I wanted to do a super easy run but plenty of folks picked near race-pace times. Their logic, I guess, was that if you know what your maximum pace is, you can pick a time near that.

Me and Emily nearing the finish.

I forgot to mention the weather. The whole time we were getting ready to run dark clouds were rolling in. I figured it what a matter of when, not if, the sky would open up. Sure enough, soon after we took off we heard thunder and a light rain started.

I ended up falling in with one of the other Whippets, Emily, who had put down 34:00 for her time. A new runner, Bob, also joined us for much of the run. When we got to the turn-around Emily was sure we were doing 9-minute miles, but I knew we weren't going that slow. Somewhere on the way back the rain changed from a light drizzle to an open faucet but I think that just added to the fun.

About 800 yards from the end Emily said pointed out the finish to Bob who took off (later he said that was his fastest ever 4 miler--awesome!). When we crossed the line Annette, our "official" time keeper said 32:01 and I did a little touchdown dance. The prize? A NRD t-shirt and hat, oh, and even better, a free beer.

We all headed to the Chelsea Brewing Company where many beers were consumed along with some delicious greasy fried food. Not a bad Wednesday if you ask me!