NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile – the Wedding Version

Oh, I am warning you… this is CHEESY and ridiculous, and you might even think I am making a ridicule of the sport. You might also think it’s cute and fun… but as we were going for wedding PRs, keep these in mind:

8/21 Running Proposal

9/2 Engagement Pictures

9/3 PR Wedding!

9/21 Wedding Ceremony in Central Park

So, a MONTH.

And because the Ceremony was on 9/21 and the mile on 9/22 we figured we could make a wedding weekend out of it… So Juan had the genius (or cheesy!) idea to run the Mile together (he doesn’t run anything that lasts less than 10 hours, ehem, so he would have never raced this…) for fun… In outfits. I said yes. He went online and a few days later we had these:

How did we get matching numbers, you ask?

Well…. we had been so busy we never signed up for the race… Also, we had visitors in town for the ceremony so we weren’t sure we wanted to drag them to the race or leave them to their own destiny… So we only pulled the trigger on Thursday and by then bib pick up is open and numbers are NOT assigned by pace… So, we signed up online at the same time and we got matching numbers. I guess I clicked Submit a second earlier!

Sunday morning, post Saturday ceremony and other stuff , was rough. We were exhausted… My feet were destroyed from wearing heels for like 8 hours all over the park (we must have walked like 2 miles taking pictures, coming soon!), but once you get moving…

We took this picture in our corner:

Then, a couple of blocks later, the official photographers caught on. It’s so cool that I live less than a block away from one of the most exciting road races in the world!

We are gonna buy these, no worries, you’ll see the nice versions!

We decided to hit the back of the Women 40-49 heat because we wanted to cheer and watch everybody race! I got to catch a lot of people at the start, including a lot of team mates, and I felt so out of place in the outfit… Like I wasn’t taking the event seriously. Oy. I know it is stoopid to feel that way, because we all have our different reasons for each race, but my racing wiring is hard to reset!!!

The thing is, I am not in PR shape having to cut running for 6 weeks, and my PR is from last year: this race was a week before my Berlin Marathon and I was in good shape. There was no way I’d PR. I was also tired, feet hurt. If I wasn’t going to PR, why bother instead of just having fun? This was our wedding weekend after tall. Perspective.

Soon enough it was 10:10 and we sat in the back of the corral. We spotted Kettia, who had run 20 miles the day before (beast!) in our corral, wished her good luck and waited… in the back. We wanted to run slow to have fun with it and not be in anybody’s way, so we waited until everybody went, and then started trotting easily. A block after it got crowded again, so we now waited for another bit 😉

Once we got to 65th St, all hell broke loose, the Dashing Whippets had taken over the whole block and it was LOUD. Seriously, this is the funnest and loudest team ever.

Of course it’s Ben Ko‘s picture, if it’s the amazing!

Oh, gosh, we did all sorts of weird things… Like forgetting to toss the bouquet and then deciding I’d do it later!

Then, the funniest thing happened. Juan told me to stop at the white lines, RIGHT BEFORE THE FINISH LINE. UMMM, WHAT?

He picked me up and carried me through the finish.

When better planning is needed: that skort is not for this type of pictures…

I am not sure where that photographer on the floor’s pictures are but I am sure:

I don’t want to see/share them
they banned them

We then went back to hang out with my sister, friends and the team. I tossed the bouquet (note to self: carrying flowers on a run, not so easy!). We cheered some more, screamed a lot, said lots of Congrats and Good job (ugh, I still have no idea what time I did because, truly: it doesn’t matter!). And had some more fun and laughs. All day. And NO soreness or post-mile-coughing!!