Global Running Day in a Local Way: Route #2

Last year, for Global Running Day, the staff of The Run On wrote about our favorite places we've run around the globe. This year, we're writing about (and celebrating) Global Running Day by taking a more local approach, using this time to explore the areas and the neighborhoods around us while following social-distancing guidelines.

From May 28 to June 7, we're posting a new one-mile route each day as a way to get creative for the NYRR Virtual Global Running Day 1M. Follow along with us here, and you might just find a few new loops to add to your long runs!

I was challenged by my co-worker Ted Doyle to complete the Global Running Day #Run1Tag1 challenge by running the NYRR Virtual Global Running Day 1M race. With Global Running Day 2020 just days away, I was excited to take on this challenge on one of my all-time favorite one-mile running routes: the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile course. I’m fortunate that this beautiful and historic one-mile stretch is just a 20-minute jog from my home. I headed over to 5th Avenue at East 80th Street early on a humid weekday morning to celebrate Global Running Day in a local way.

I’ve done two dozen NYRR virtual races since NYRR Volvo Virtual Racing launched in 2018. Some I’ve run fast, others not so much. These days, with in-person racing on pause, virtual racing feels like a lifeline tethering me to the global running community as well as to what matters most deeply to me as a runner: the opportunity to test my limits and relish the sense of my body and mind bending toward something difficult and fulfilling.

I warmed up in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by doing the drills and strideouts recommended by Mary Cain before running a virtual mile. Traffic on 5th Avenue was light, so I decided to run in the street, hugging the right-hand curb. I didn’t want to annoy pedestrians or catch my toe on a cobblestone and face-plant on the sidewalk.

I lined up at 81st Street, a block north of the actual 5th Avenue Mile start, as it’s always a good idea to run your virtual race a bit longer than the prescribed distance. I went into a sprinter’s crouch, my finger on my watch’s start button. Wow, this felt serious! I even had a few butterflies in my stomach. I hit start and the butterflies flew away as I zeroed in on my task. Very quickly I entered the pain cave, a place where nothing matters beyond riding the red line of maximal effort.

As anyone who’s run the 5th Avenue Mile knows, the course is maddeningly deceptive: It has fast downhill first quarter (80th Street to 75th Street), a sly uphill second quarter (75th Street to the Frick Museum at 70th Street), and a glorious but agonizing flat and downhill stretch to the finish at 60th Street by Grand Army Plaza. I can assure you that all those elements are still there—New Yorkers may be flattening the curve, but we will never flatten 5th Avenue.

Like every mile race I’ve ever run, this one felt simultaneously endless and quick-as-a-flash. As I turned up my effort at 65th Street (where, miraculously, I caught the green light) I was no longer thinking, only sensing—I saw the finish line, heard my labored breathing, smelled the damp pavement, and felt sweat trickling down my face and neck.

Afterward, I bent over, hands-on-knees, at Grand Army Plaza. I was happy with my time—never mind that it was a minute slower than my best 5th Avenue Mile and close to two minutes slower than my lifetime mile PR—and I was proud that I’d run the whole distance wearing a mask over my mouth and nose. And I’d had lots of fun.

I stood at the finish line, taking in those feelings and thinking about all the incredible athletes who’ve run here—Jenny Simpson, Nick Willis, Sydney Maree, and so many more—and yearning for the day when runners of all ages and abilities will return to race here.

And now I’m tagging my colleague Katie Manzi to run her mile and continue the challenge! 

Register for the free NYRR Virtual Global Running Day 1M, part of NYRR Volvo Virtual Racing Powered by Strava, and run one mile anywhere in the world between May 28 and June 7. Register by May 31 to be entered for the chance to win a one-on-one virtual coaching session with 2009 New York City Marathon champion Meb Keflezighi!