Gear: Solomon Adv Skin 12, Hoka Cliftons, 1.5L bladder, 2x500mL bottles, 6 Hammer gels, 1 Red Bull
Miles 1-3: Left my apartment and headed up 1st. At 60th I cut east to the river, mistakenly thinking I could connect to the path. Nope! Cut back to York and continued up to 73, where *again* I mistakenly thought I could connect to the path. Luckily this was early enough in the run that the extra mileage hopefully wouldn't kill me by the end. At 78th, I finally managed to hit the river.
Miles 4-8: Beautiful morning, easy miles. Hadn't really seen this part of the city, the path here isn't the prettiest. Around 143rd I was forced to cut into the streets. I was basically alone on the streets here, got a strange look from a mechanic who didn't seem used to someone running with a pack through this part of the city. But I had a print-out of every left and right turn I needed to make in order to hug the river as close as possible.
Miles 9-12: Edgecomb is *gorgeous*, and running along the edge of the park was a nice reprieve from the stoplights. Took my first gel here. Got slightly lost trying to cut through the park down to the river, legs were still feeling fine, though the steps downhill weren't super fun.
Miles 13-15: First time in Inwood! Also really gorgeous. I decided to run along the edge as much as I could which felt like backtracking at the tip, but snapped a couple cool photos of the top of the city. At 14, successfully managed to remember where the cutoff was on Dyckman to put me on the upper path. If I had missed this, it would've been a dead end and a mile or two of backtracking.
Miles 16-26: In general, this went as smooth as it could have. Started the gels regimen at 16, half a gel every 2 miles. Down west side highway started seeing a bunch more runners which kept the spirits up. Got some photos of... rock statues? near the GW - I haven't been up in this part of the city in a long while. Around mile 20 I started feeling it in my legs, but I was still cruising at 7:00-7:30/mi pace. Overall I felt in great condition.
Mile 26.2: Took a brief water break here, I just split a 3:13, solo, on a Sunday morning.
Miles 26-28: This part of the city I know all too well, so it kind of went by in a blur. I was feeling amped by my marathon split though, so didn't drop too much pace. All I was looking forward to was hitting Battery Park so I could drink the Red Bull. Rockets on your legs, man.
Miles 29-32: The end is in sight, and the Red Bull kicks in. At mile 31, Nicole was waiting with a sign. I think she was expecting me to stop but looking at my watch, I was running under 7:00 pace. As I passed her, I apologized, but sub-4:00 was in the cards and I wasn't about to slow down.
Finish: Hit the start line and stopped my watch: 3:59:52. Sub 4:00! Slightly more than the 31 I had budgeted for, but I don't know how much of that was GPS error or the fact I took a couple wrong turns. My legs were completely sore here, but I honestly still had some left in the tank. Which truthfully just means I paced it perfectly - no blow up is a good day.
Went home and had a beer, and a massive brunch. Awesome day.