Grimace and Bear It: 2019 Great Cow Harbor 10K Race Recap

Hooo boy it’s been twelve years since I ran this race I’m about to recap! Wait, no… hold on… it’s been eight weeks. That’s it? It feels like twelve years. Weird.

I’ve apologized for being behind on this blog. I hope everyone knows how sorry I am by now. The funny thing is, once I start writing I LOVE it and I’m like, why did I not want to write? I love to write! What’s my problem? Still trying to figure that one out but I’ll be sure to update everyone once I do!

Anyway, let’s get to this favorite race of mine: The Great Cow Harbor 10 Kilometer Run in my lovely childhood hometown of Northport, Long Island.

Thirst Trap: 2019 New York Mini 10K Race Recap

I was excited to run the Mini 10K again this year. First of all, it’s a 10K. I like 10Ks. I like them better than 5Ks and I think I like them better than 15Ks, although I have only ever run a 15K twice. My “regular” route is seven miles, so 6.2 feels not only doable, but short.

There’s a lot of cool history surrounding the Mini. It’s the world’s oldest all-female road race, created in 1972 by Kathrine Switzer and my close personal friend Nina Kuscsik, with the help of then NYRR president Fred Lebow. That inaugural race in 1972 had just 78 runners. Over the years, there have been some legendary competitors: both Grete Waitz and Tegla Loroupe have won it five times each. The fastest female marathoner in history, Paula Radcliffe, won in 2001. Deena Kastor won it in 2004, the last American winner for a decade until Molly Huddle claimed that honor for herself in 2014. Mary Keitany, a four-time winner of the NYC Marathon, won the Mini in 2015, 2017, and 2018.

This year’s Mini had 8886 runners. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Passion and Detachment: 2018 Grete’s Great Gallop 10K Race Recap

It wasn’t like I needed to do another race this year. I’ve completed my 9+1. I’m a month away from the marathon. But I love racing and I love the 10K. And when I was looking for just one more race to do before marathon day, this one caught my eye.

I spent a lot of time over the summer watching 80s NYC marathon footage. Don’t worry, I’m working on a whole blog post about it. Although I knew who Grete Waitz was, I’m not sure I had ever actually seen her run. Unfortunately, I never will in person, as she passed away in 2011. But for the better part of 1978 to 1988, she dominated the NYC marathon in a way nobody had before or ever will again. She won the race nine times. Nine times. Even back then, they were saying her record would never be matched. So far, it hasn’t.

Make Yourself At Home: 2018 Great Cow Harbor 10K Race Recap

The Great Cow Harbor 10K is my favorite race that I completely ignored for 18 years.

I first ran the race in 1999 at the tender age of 25. I was a casual but dedicated runner, having run a handful of 5Ks, a copy of Runner’s World in my mailbox each month (yes, the print edition), and boasting a solidly middle-of-the-pack racing career. My 5K times were in the 8:45-9:45 pace range from what I recall, and I had never run a 10K before. Hell I don’t even know if I had run 6 miles. Maybe I had. If I had, it was my “long run.”

Cow Harbor is the nickname of my hometown of Northport, Long Island. Similar to calling New York City “The Big Apple,” it’s a fun moniker that no one actually uses in conversation. The backstory is that Northport used to be called Great Cow Harbor until I guess someone decided it was less of a mouthful to simply name the town for what it was: a village with a port on the north shore of Long Island.

Turn! Turn! Turn!: 2018 Queens 10K Race Recap

I signed up for NYRR’s Queens 10K a couple of months ago on a whim while I still lived on Long Island. I had no other 10Ks planned other than September’s Cow Harbor, and when I saw that the Queens course was “flat and fast,” I thought, why not get another 10K in there?

I registered for last weekend’s Mini 10K later. Two races two weekends in a row is something I wouldn’t even have considered a year ago, especially two 10Ks. It wasn’t long ago that 6 miles was my long run. To race that distance 7 days apart would have seemed crazy.

Work Bitch: 2018 New York Mini 10K Race Recap

I ran a 10K this past weekend along with 8,372 other women! In Central Park! New York City! And I PR’d! This is my recap!

The NYRR New York Mini 10K was only my third ever 10K race, the other two being 1999’s Cow Harbor 10K (59:06 finish) and 2017’s Cow Harbor 10K (54:39 finish). I’ve run a lot of 6.2 mile training runs, but very few 6.2 mile races. So I was both confident and nervous, which is pretty much how I’ve gone through life.