The 2x2

Last night I ventured back up to Van Cortlandt Park for the relay portion of the Summer Series, but it didn't go quite as planned. I'd planned on running with Julie (raceslikeagirl) and we'd been chatting about the race for the last week or so. I was excited to run with Julie for once rather than against her in a race, but during her warmup she noticed some bad tightness in her hamstring and made the wise decision to sit the race out. I was bummed, but I'm glad she was able to make the decision before the race and not DURING. Knowing Julie and her competitive spirit (much like my own) she would have hobbled through the race, causing further injury. So there we were with 10 minutes til race time and my team consisted of me. Luckily, fellow Inwood Hill Runner Jason had stopped by to say hi and I was able to rope him into running with me. This changed our division to co-ed and put our combined age at 65. Jason took Julie's spot like a trooper and ran his heart out on the first leg while I warmed up a bit and bounced excitedly at the starting line for him to tag me. He came flying in way ahead of lots of teams and I took off along the flats towards the Cow path. Unlike the 5K races which runs the trail along the side of the golf course and around the back hills, this race turns left and weaves up to Cemetery Hill which is a total bitch. Man, that hill is steep and long and left me whimpering this time. My GMR teammate and 4th of July birthday boy was waiting at a point about 2/3 of the way up the hill where he accidentally told me I was "at the top... Oh.. Well, almost" as I huffed up the hill after getting passed by a familiar VCTC runner. He's lucky I didn't have the extra energy to strangle him for his "this is the top" comment because it was definitely not! :) When I finally reached the top, I was thrilled to see the familiar downhill leading to the top of the flats. I did my best to keep up with the guy who passed me on the hill and the woman right in front of him, but there was no chance of catching them with only 0.25 mi or so left. It turns out they were both on teams in our division and AG and took the top 2 spots and the only muffins. Sigh. For the first time in a long while, I left VCP hungry. Oh well, both Jason and I ran REALLY hard and beat my previous 2x2 time by nearly 2 mins. It was a fun night, as VCTC summer nights always are, and the Inwood crew had fun showing off our team shirts to curious folks who peered at our chests to find out just who "runs this park".
I'll be back to VCP in two weeks for the next 5K, I hope it cools off a bit for the next race - this one was brutal.
Thanks to Jonathan Stenger for the photo of me charging up the hill in the worst possible shoes for this race.

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