2015 Newport 10k

This past weekend some of  my friends and I took part in the annual 2015 edition of the   Newport 10k . Newport, NJ is a busy commercial and residential neighborhood near Jersey city,  located across the Hudson River from lower  Manhattan, NY. The weather was perfect , sunny and mid 50’s and the course was flat. This year’s event had over 1300+ finishers.

My goals.. Race morning

I again wanted to improve on my last 10k at Branch Brook park a few weeks back, while my running has been more consistent , my times have not improved much, so again just putting in another solid sub 50′ 10k would suffice. 

I was surprised to see Duncan racing, he had just finished the NJ marathon last week, but apparently recovered enough to be in the race. Also racing was Alicia, she is also someone who always very competitive and runs slightly faster than my pace. I would try to hang with her as long as possible. Drew and Ryan were also there , Steve G. even raced but somehow I managed to miss seeing him altogether.

Race

The first mile went by quickly and I managed to keep a decent pace, in the low 7:30’s . I managed to stay around Alicia for the first few miles. As I anticipated her pace was just perfect for me, just a little faster than I would normally run alone, but not so fast I couldn’t match it, that’s what you need to keep imporving is to find your pacesetter and try your darnest to stick with them.

This course has a lot of turns as it meanders through the streets of Newport and Jersey City, so it’s really important to run the tangents, on this course, it can save a lot of time and distance. Also because of the tall buildings and density the GPS signal is going to be off,  my watch along with others appeared to by indicating the mile makers almost a .1 before the actual miles appeared, so not sure why that was. At the  end of the event the  GPS was off by more the .3 mile at the.

We went through 3 miles in under 23:30 which is a decent pace for me. Again I was still hanging on to Alicia, but by around mile 4 I started slipping and couldn’t match her stride for stride. Also this is when a few more runners started passing. This is always a telltale sign that I’m beginning to lose ground.

As we headed towards the waterfront around mile 4.8 the New york skyline came into view along with the Trolley, yes the tram is still on its normal Saturday schedule and if your unlucky you may get caught waiting for it…  This is the best part of this race, as you run along the Jersey city (Newport)  waterfront for about 1.2 miles before a short turn inward and into the finish.

I was still trudging along , but managed to maintain my sub 8′ pace through the waterfront. But when I turned around, I did see Duncan was gaining on me, he was easy to spot as he would wave his hands every time I looked back. looks like his marathon recovery is coming along fine..

Finish & Results

Duncan never to far behind , he managed to run up besides me within the last 400m , I know he was just taking it easy because he had time to encourage me and smile for some pictures..  we finished side by side.

This years winners and elite field was pretty impressive over 8 finishers ran under 5′ mile averages.

 

Again it was a fun event Im happy  with my consistent performance, better than last year’s time and a slight improvement over Cherry Blossom 10k.  As usual its the people that make the race fun, sure we always want to improve, but its racing with friends and rivals that’s what does it for me..

This was pretty much one of the last of the running races for this Spring, my next races will be some open water swims and triathlons after that..  lets hope my performance in multi-sport events continues to be consistent and my running improves .