The little surprises

In running, and in life we experience surprises, both good and bad. Sometimes runs we are really excited about turn out terrible, and it's usually those times that we don't want to drag ourselves out of the house that we have the best runs. Today was one of those days where I was delightfully surprised by what my run had in store for me.

I woke up at 5:45 am to get to Central Park by 7:30am. I was meeting up with Jamba Juice and the other Jamba sponsored athletes. We were supposed to run a 5k race that was organized by Movrun. Through speaking with some of the people in charge of organizing the Jamba Juice event, we all (the Jamaba athletes, and the 20 or so people that showed up to run the race) learned that the race was canceled. I joked around that it was no big deal and we could run it anyway! Heck, I had a Garmin!

And so that's what we did. We said hello to everyone, took some photos, had some Jamba Juice, and tried to figure out the route we would run. Funny enough, I was pretty much the ONLY person there who was familiar with Central Park. Most of the people were either from the Bronx, or NJ, or Boston, and they had never even been in Central Park before! I mapped out a really simple run that was pretty much an extended lower loop. I had wanted to get the mileage closer to 3 miles, but it was more really like 2.3. Regardless, I stood in front of the group and explained where we were going, and where we would be turning to come back. I had a brief moment where I said to myself, "Gosh, I feel like Kenley!" (She is the leader/pacer of the NYC Niketown weekly runs)

After talking to some of the people before we started the "race" I could tell this was a slower group, and having met several of the Jamba athletes at previous races, I knew they were really fast. Melody, from Jamba had amazing enthusiasm, and gave us a little count down, and we were off!

Like I suspected, there were some FAST Jamba Juice athletes, good for them ;) I hung back with the rest of the crowd and really enjoyed feeling like I was leading them through a run in a beautiful park on such a beautiful morning. About a mile in I started chatting with a few of the runners, one was around my age and here for the summer. He had been looking for races/group runs and I told him about NYRR and the free Niketown meet ups.

At one point, the woman I was running with said, "You know, you guys really didn't have to do this. You guys went above and beyond today." And that made me feel so good. I smiled, and told her, "Of course we had to, we came here to run."