In yesterday’s New York City Marathon 2022 Day 1 post I had travelled over from the UK and hit the expo up.

Today’s plan is really straightforward. Run the 5k in the morning then spend as much time as possible off my feet ahead of tomorrow’s marathon.

I slept really well last night, 2min shy of 8hrs which for me is really good. I am the type of person who struggles to sleep in a new bed. To be fair, I did say in yesterday’s post that I was feeling tired after the long travel day. Fingers crossed I can get a similar sleep tonight.

I had set my alarm for 7am with the 5k dash due to start at 8:45am. I wasn’t sure what time the corrals closed or if they do close ahead of the gun going off so I planned to be up with plenty of time to spare. The time difference had me up at 6am anyway so needn’t have worried.

I had a coffee in the room, did some stretching to loosen up my legs and left the hotel at 7:50am.

Abbott 5k Dash to the Finish:

My hotel was a 15min walk to the start so no rush. I stopped off at Starbucks to grab a coffee, taking this race real seriously today.

Having seen that the weather forecast was warmer than normal, I had only packed a short-sleeved shirt for today but I was in two minds about whether that would be too cold so I went with the arm warmers which I had packed for the marathon. They only lasted the walk to the start, it was too warm and humid for arm warmers. A far cry from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 5k Dash where I have run in long sleeves, gloves and beanies.

Like the majority of the field, I was using this as a nice slow shakeout ahead of the marathon tomorrow. I knew the GPS through Midtown is going to be really flakey so I set the watch to heart rate and would track my effort based on my heart rate. I knew that a typical easy-paced run back home is around 130 – 135bpm, given the humidity today and the excitement I felt ok with letting it go up slightly to 140bpm.

That was more or less bang on for the average once I crossed the line. There were times on some of the uphill sections where it went north of 150 but for the most part, I was running a steady consistent heart rate, which translated into 3 pretty well-paced miles at 8:18, 8:18 and 8:26 and finishing up in 26:20.

I love running the Abbott Dash to the Finish 5k, it is always just a fun shakeout run for me but what better place to do a shakeout than running on closed streets through Midtown and finishing up at the marathon finish line.

Today was a real eye-opener though, I knew it was going to be warm and humid tomorrow. Even running that 5k today at a leisurely 8:26/mi pace had me sweating a lot. I did learn or more like relearn after running a very hot and humid Ironman World Championship in Kona Hawaii 4 weeks ago, once the body has warmed up in that first mile or so, the sweating isn’t quite as bad. That will be something I remind myself off tomorrow, although I am under no illusion, I will be sweating a lot and for a lot longer running at a faster pace.

“Relaxing” Around NYC:

With the shakeout run done, it was time to head back to the hotel to shower. I was in no rush to get back, it was actually really nice walking back from Central Park in the warm sun.

I remembered that there was a decent deli on 48th & 9th, having stayed at a hotel on that street in 2019.

I hadn’t noticed that the deli had a whole host of marathon medals hanging in the window, it turns out the guy that owns it is a keen runner and is out there again tomorrow too. I stopped by here to grab 2 cream cheese bagels for breakfast, sitting outside in shorts and t-shirt in November just feels wrong but so good at the same time.

After that, I had no real plans, just a slow steady walk back down to 38th & Park Ave to the hotel. I showered off, and chilled out in the room for a few hours writing the day 1 post and tomorrow’s NYC Marathon Gear post.

At about 2pm I headed back out to grab lunch, a Shake Shack again. I just wanted something quick and easy. Whilst there I called into Macy’s on 34th St to do a bit of shopping. I usually leave all of the shopping for Monday but this year I am flying home straight after the race tomorrow so shopping is reserved for a 1-hour window on Saturday.

I love going into Macy’s at Christmas and seeing their Christmas decorations, although they aren’t fully up this time of year it was good to go in and see what’s up so far.

That was more or less it for this chilled Saturday in New York. I went back to the room and packed my bag ready to check out in the morning, got my race gear out ready for tomorrow morning and set the bottles up ready to mix and take to the start. I am going to have 1 bottle of electrolyte mix to drink in the hours before the race and then run with another bottle to help manage the hydration during the race.

I showered again then went out and got the pre-race pizza situation sorted, totally underestimated the size of a slice when ordering 5 but can’t say I didn’t eat well ahead of the race.

Spent a bit of time typing out this post and watching some TV on the iPad with the aim of going to bed around 10pm. The clocks go back an hour tonight too which is a nice extra bonus hour in bed.

The plan for New York City Marathon Day 3? To run the marathon and then head on home.