On a trip to NYC, Let's Run a 5K in Central Park!

A week after running my 1st 5K, I went on a trip to New York City (! I had caught the running bug, and wanted to do another race while in the city that never sleeps!

Well, I decided I wanted to run said race when I was already in NYC! Needless to say I only had a pair of Uggs, that I definitely wasn't going to be running in!

So the night before the race I signed up to run a Charity 5K Central Park, Park Run. "Wow! Only $35! but the experience of running in Central Park in 30 degree weather will be worth it!" At least thats what I thought. Now, I still needed sneakers, Luckily for me,  I was just reading about these amazing new Nike running shoes, the Nike Flyknit, Free Runs, and decided I needed to have these shoes because they were probably amazing running shoes! They actually ended up not being very amazing, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I wear a small shoe size, The perfect size 5. Which believe it or not is a very hard to find when I'm just casually browsing the clearance shoe rack at over priced department stores, and even more difficult to find when you are on a time crunch and running a 5K in less than 12 hours!

At last we found Nike Town a store somewhere in New York that we somehow passed by twice before realizing where it was. I don't know how I missed the Nike Town letters, or the window display of Nike Sneakers, so I will just blame it on the cold weather this Florida girl isn't used to.

The morning of the race came, and I was running it with a few people from the group I came to NYC with (It was a college club field trip). We got lost on the subway, somehow took the wrong train, It was absolutely freezing! (Okay for me it was) Oh and my feet were already hurting, I could feel the blisters forming, and we hadn't even made it to Central Park.

Okay, so we arrived, and we realized there was no packet pick up, or bibs, no t-shirts, oh yeah and no medal either. Wow, this has got to be the most expensive race ever! Oh we are in New York City- thats why.

We start the race, It is now 33 degrees, I am frozen, and the group of us fall behind the elite runners. My ankles are hurting, I'm pretty sure my toes are frost bitten. Oh, and I'm not wearing socks because these sneakers are basically like socks on your feet, and barely provide any support. Here is a picture to give you a better idea if you aren't familiar with these expensive sock shoes.

I also attempted to avoid some hills by going "around" which actually took me to the outskirts of the park, and we ended up running close to six miles all in all, and never actually made it to the finish line. If there even was a finish line. To this day I'm not entirely sure where we were supposed to be running, but at least we got a nice morning tour of Central Park, ended up in "Spanish Harlem" and had to take like 3 trains back to the hotel, and walk another mile, and pass it, and have to be tourists and pull out Apple Maps to get back to the warmth of the Sheraton Time Square.

It ended up being a very memorable run, the experience was great, and I was very fortunate to have the experience to see Central Park in a new perspective. It was my first time in NYC, and I am proud to say I ran a race through one of the most well known parks in America.

I don't have too many pictures since getting a new phone, but here are some pictures from the run. Notice how my ankle is propped up? Yeah it was pretty swollen, not sure if it was the shoes or the temperature. Actually no, I'm going to blame the shoes. The very expensive shoes. ( That I have only worn twice!)

Notice my crazy layered outfit. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a sweat shirt, a scarf, leggings, sweat pants, ear warmer head band ( I have no idea what those are called) Oh and my super cool Betsey Johnson cross body. Remember I had to be resourceful. I had no idea I was going to be running my second 5K in New York City!