Tonight I had the most amazing evening with the lovely and speedy Gia! My new running coach met me in Central Park after a long day of work for a diagnostic run.
I ran a mile from the office to meet her and was thrilled with the crisp, cool weather. I wasn’t sure how to dress for the weather and unsure of how much the temperature would drop. Luckily my crop pants, marathon finisher shirt, and marathon jacket was perfect!
The city was glistening with evening and holiday lights of white, red, and green!
Once I met up with Gia the learning started immediately! Did you know that every lamp post in Central Park is labeled to help runners find their way? For example, this lamp post is on the West side of the city at 59th and 7th Avenue. Pretty cool eh?
We spent the next 4.3 miles catching up, rehashing my marathon experience, talking about blogs, and enjoying the evening. This was my first true night time run in Central Park and I’m please to report that we both felt very safe! There were other runners, dog walkers, and a Central Park safety patrol in the park as well.
We started our run with a 1 mile warm-up and then did some interval work for the remaining 2.5 miles before doing a 3/4 mile cool down. It was an amazing fete that I was able to keep up a conversation during our run as our average pace ended up being 9:44 which is not normally my “conversational pace.”
I’ll be sharing more about our training and my goals in the coming week as Gia is putting together my National Half Marathon training program this weekend! While Marc was a great first coach and served the purpose during the marathon, I’m really looking forward to working with someone whom I know personally, has run many half and full marathons, is located in New York City, and has now run along side me!
I am hoping that I can make a week night run a regular part of my training routine as this really helped calm me down after a long and stressful day. Now that I’m home I feel very relaxed and ready for bed!
I’m off to spend a few minutes stretching and foam rolling! Good night!
such pretty sights at night!!! im so jealous that you have a coach!! how cool. oh and heyyyy im doing the national half too! we should run sometime–here or there!
Katie: Since I still have some very specific goals I want to achieve I believe a coach is the best way to attain those goals. I’ll keep you posted!
The pictures are beautiful! Makes me miss living in the city SOO badly! I loved running in the early mornings but there was always something so special and magical with running at night, especially around the holidays.
Good luck with your training for your next race!
Michele: Yes, running in the city is something for which I’m very thankful!
jealous! i had to run alone in the park tonight!
Angela: Sorry! But wasn’t the park gorgeous!?
The street markings on the CP lights are the best! So helpful.
Good luck with the new coach!
Thanks Amelia! I never knew about the CP light markings!!
Great run last night … awesome pace. Funny, even with the speedups we were doing, we hit the exact same pace per mile for 3 of the 4.3.
I hope your legs are feeling good today.
I learned about the lamp posts last year. Pretty cool right? If you just count the ones on one side of the streets you can use it to keep track of your miles, such as a workout I would do is run fast for 5 posts, jog for one, run fast for 5, etc.
So excited that your first training run with the new coach went swimmingly! Obviously your training plan will be created to suit your needs/goals – but will you be sharing it with us?
I love evening runs! Especially in the fall. They are just so soothing! We are around the same speed and Im running national half too! I hadn’t considered a running coach. Would you mind sharing what your goals are? You can email if you’d prefer.
Those pics are awesome, great to hear you have a good time with the coach and everything went smoothly ! I didn’t run at night for a long time, guess I should do it again to see all those nice things.
Beautiful night run! I’ve always wanted to see NYC around the holidays!