5th Avenue Mile today - my heat at 10:15am. Got up around 7 and jogged for maybe 12 minutes, mostly around the dirt track at the grade school. Easily the coldest morning of the Fall out there today - could see my breath and my hands got cold. Did all my normal pre-race routine and walked down to the train station to catch the 8:39 train into the city. Very crowded for a Saturday morning with a lot of Wall St. types getting on. Evidently everyone that still has a job is working weekends now. Got off at Harlem 125th St station just after 9 and started my warm-up down to 80th St, which is about 2.5 miles. The first 15 or 20 blocks go through some semi-rough neighborhoods (well, what passes for "rough" in Manhattan, the safest big city in the nation, these days - they are slowly getting gentrified) until you get to Central Park and all the expensive apartment buildings start. I wouldn't run through that part of town at night, but on a Saturday morning, it's a non-issue.
Around 85th St by the Met I started looking for the registration tent. Couldn't quite figure out why 5th Avenue wasn't shut off to traffic yet, or where the hordes of other runners warming up were. Got down to 80th St, the race start, and really began to get confused. Where was everyone? I thought the heats started around 9, and it was pushing 9:30. I ran into the park and onto the loop road. Tons and tons of joggers and cyclists out on this beautiful morning but not many that looked like they were warming up for a mile. I was started to get a little panicked. I couldn't find the registration tent, and I wasn't going to have enough time to get changed, hit the porta-john, do strides, etc. Finally I called my wife. In about 3 seconds she had found the Web site and started looking for packet pickup instructions: "...Packets may be picked up on race day, Sunday September 21, at the tent..." What the deuce? Sunday, September 21st? When I registered several weeks ago, the race was on Saturday! I know this for a fact because I had originally planned to run the 5th Ave Mile on Saturday and a 5k on Sunday, but had decided to forget the 5k. How had I not gotten word that they changed the race day?!?! I didn't have much choice but to turn around and run back to 125th St and get back on the train outta town. Wearing my backpack stuffed with my racing flats, water, and gear, I probably looked like I was training for boot camp. Got home and felt pretty tired and deflated. Ego slightly bruised, but trying to be philosophical about it.
Turns out I received 2 emails this week from NYRR (which I read) that gave the race date as Sunday, but there was nothing highlighting the fact that the date had changed. Looks like they just quietly erased 20 and replaced it with 21. (Probably the city or NYPD made them change it due to traffic coneerns or logistics or what have you.) But it goes to show, even if contrary information is right before your eyes, you tend to ignore it if it goes against what you think to be true. I believe psychologists call this "confirmation bias" because people tend to seek out information that confirms rather than challenges their existing beliefs. Total of 6.5M of warm-up and warm-down for a nonexistent race. No time, pace, or HR information recorded! Triax: 107
Adistar: 63
Cumulus: 306.2 Glycerin: 39 NB 826: 9
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