A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Central Park

It seems silly to write a blog post on running in Central Park.  It's not as though I'm some running pioneer, the first to ever enter a vast space of urban greenery and think "hey I bet this would be a decent place for a workout."  Nor have I only just discovered running in Central Park.  I've been here 6 years; if that were the case, I'd deserve to have my Kinvaras revoked.  Nonetheless, something strange has happened with regards to me and training and Central Park since I moved back into Manhattan this week.  Namely, I'm actually doing some training there.

I've made no secret of the fact that something's not quite right this training cycle.  It's not the running itself I mind; I love running.  But it's the specific workouts.  The "training" part of running.  I have a lot on my plate, yeah, but I've also been struggling to prioritize workouts over, say, football and alcohol and foods with cheese atop them.  That's nobody's fault but my own (and possible Roger Goodell's, because he sets the NFL schedule but also because it's fun to blame him for everything).  Talking it out with friends has helped, but, at least this week, it seems so has Central Park.

In Brooklyn, I was fewer than 2 blocks from Prospect Park, and ran there most days.  In Manhattan, I'm between 6 blocks and 2 miles from Central Park, depending on where I enter.  So it's not as though the potential cure-all to my blasé attitude is convenience.  Further, Prospect Park has a hill.  Central Park has 5 (that I count: Harlem, 3 on the west side, and Cat).  So it's not ease of running that's turned my attitude around.  But for whatever reason, despite late nights at work events and many alcoholic beverages, waking up and training this week has been more pleasure and less pain.

Proof?  This morning's workout was 7 miles with the middle 3 at Goal Marathon Pace, which should be around 7:40 if I'm looking to PR (again, I'm still not clear if that is in fact what I'm looking to do, but let's go with that...).  I was positively dreading this workout.  My "training" has been shoddy, and I prepared myself to be discouraged when I couldn't hit the target paces.  Lo!  What's this?

It seems my warm up was extra slow this morning on account of dodging
Park Avenue's doormen and their sidewalk washing hoses.

So what have we learned?
1. I'm too good at running
2. Consistent training is unnecessary
3. Central Park is a hole in the time-space continuum
4. Roger Goodell should be fired

The more you know!