New York, 5K by 5K

I've let the "Marathon Like a Pro" story stay up for a few extra days, primarily because it was such a unique experience. If you have not yet read that story, scroll down to the Monday, November 2 post and catch up on my New York City Marathon experience.

As enjoyable as it is to tell the story, there are some cold hard facts to running a marathon. The facts manifest themselves in a runner's finishing time. My facts from last week are shown below.

For those not expert in the metric system, each 5k is 3.1 miles. So, my first 3.1 miles was run in just over 26 minutes. My intended pace for that stretch of pavement was around 29 minutes, but I had to run ahead of my planned pace to keep up with the quick group at the front of the pack.

The next 5k was around 27 and a half minutes, which was still a bit ahead of my intended pace. Other than a couple of bathroom stops along the way, my pace was fairly consistent...although consistently slower.

If you look closely at my split times, you will see how I really slowed between the 35k and 40k marks, which is approximately between miles 22 and 25. According to my Garmin watch, I ran from mile 22 to mile 23 in 9 minutes and 12 seconds. If you do the math, it took me 29 minutes to complete the other two miles in that 5k segment.

One other interesting note, according to my Garmin GPS watch I actually ran 26.73 miles during the marathon. This is attributed to wide turns and the large crowd making it difficult to find the shortest line between two points as the race winds through New York. When you realize my struggle at the end, my having run an extra half mile likely added six or seven minutes beyond the time needed for me to run just 26.2 miles.

No excuses, though. It was too great a day to regret my time. I can honestly say there was nothing left in the tank at the end of my day. It's actually quite rewarding to know I did everything I could to achieve my four hour goal, even though I fell short according to the clock.

Event: ING New York City Marathon 2009
Last Name: Sankey
First Name: Gregory

Below are the runner's results:
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Location: 5 Kilometers
Time: 00:26:02.00
Pace/mile: 00:08:22.05
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Location: 10 Kilometers
Time: 00:53:29.00
Pace/mile: 00:08:36.64
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Location: 15 Kilometers
Time: 01:21:39.00
Pace/mile: 00:08:45.57
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Location: 20 Kilometers
Time: 01:50:31.00
Pace/mile: 00:08:53.41
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Location: Half-Marathon
Time: 01:56:50.00
Pace/mile: 00:08:55.06
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Location: 25 Kilometers
Time: 02:20:26.00
Pace/mile: 00:09:02.52
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Location: 30 Kilometers
Time: 02:51:54.00
Pace/mile: 00:09:13.29
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Location: 35 Kilometers
Time: 03:22:23.00
Pace/mile: 00:09:18.27
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Location: 40 Kilometers
Time: 04:00:48.00
Pace/mile: 00:09:41.38
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Location: Finish
Time: 04:17:28.00
Pace/mile: 00:09:49.59
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All times are unofficial. Times may vary in post race official results.