Yesterday was the New Hyde Park 8K Championship Race. The weather was beautiful, - sunny and in the low 70s. However, it did feel pretty hot and whenever a breeze came along, it was delightful. I managed to come in at 47:58 (results) or a 9:39 pace.

This is a hilly course but for some reason I am fond of it. I went out ok, not too fast. I felt a little tenderness in my ankle but as I warmed up, it disappeared. I walked through the two water stops because the heat was beginning to get to me. At about mile 2, there began a long gradual decline which made getting into a nice rhythm easy. The last mile was tough and I had to walk a couple 15 second intervals but kicked the last half mile.

As I was looking over the finishing results, I saw, to my surprise, that I had come in 3rd in my class (Clydesdale-High; Men over 200 pounds) and was to receive a small trophy.

The irony of the "award" is that throughout the race I was feeling very challenged; maybe it was the heat or maybe the 2 glasses of wine the night before. Whatever the case, I was having a debate with myself throughout the race about whether or not to enter the NYC Marathon lottery. I just felt too overwhelmed to consider 4-5 months of training for a marathon. When I got home, I was feeling pretty good about myself and my running and did enter the lottery. I also got Brian to enter as well. So in mid-June we will see if we made it and till then - let's start training!