Twenty-two

The average length of a baseball game is two hours, 55 minutes. Most long runs are around three hours. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

I started in Central Park just after first pitch of the Yankees/Orioles game, which I was listening to on my little Coby pager-sized radio. Randy Johnson didn’t pitch well, but the Yanks came back to win against the O’s bullpen. Oh well; it was a good game and the weather was great, for the first time in quite awhile.

The run itself was a bit of an adventure. Lots of people in the park. I’ve taken to hiding a couple of bottles of Gatorade in a plastic bag under some of the park benches, but they disappeared sometime during my second six-mile loop. I had to make a quick detour to get some more.

Then around mile 17, some little kid on a scooter ran into my leg. He was looking at the ground rather than where he was going. I tried yelling, but we collided anyway. He took a tumble while I bloodied my leg, but neither of us were really hurt. Annoying, though.

First 6.0273 mile-loop: 51:20 (8:31 min/miles). Second: 55:41 (9:14 pace). Then 8:14-minute Gatorade retrieval that involved some running and some standing. Third: 49:34 (8:13). Then a 4.0439-mile loop in 37:32 (9:17). I won’t try to calculate overall pace, but it was definitely faster than my last long run.