This was a sunny but cold, cold, cold – did I say C-O-L-D day! The race was taking place in Washington Heights, I had never been here before. It’s north of Manhattan, off of the Harlem River Drive. It was a nice area of Manhattan; I liked the tight streets. We parked and walked to the corrals. Hardly anyone was in their corrals, as it was so cold, everyone was looking for a place to stay warm.

My husband bought a coffee at a deli where we sat to stay warm until about 10 minutes out from race time. Although I was moved up to an earlier corral, I always started with my husband in his corral. The race began on West 173rd Street and went up Fort Washington Avenue. As we passed the start line together to begin our race, the runners in the A, B, C corrals were beginning to make their way back down the other side of the avenue to the start/finish line. We continued our run together. There was salsa, irish and jazz music playing; it was fantastic!  As we came up to 178th Street, we ran under the George Washington Bridge, we looked left and it was so close, you felt like you could touch it! Fort Washington Avenue had a steep incline each way.

We circled through Fort Tyron Park and back down Fort Washington Avenue to cross the finish line. We got our heat sheets that the gracious volunteers were handing out to us on this bitter cold day, back to the warmth of our car, and off to breakfast!