What a great race to end my 2019 5K’s. I found this race after my East Coast races a few weeks ago and thought it would be so fun to run through Central Park in the fall with the amazing trees and overall atmosphere of the city. Flights to La Guardia are pretty cheap from Detroit so I decided to do it. This trip was one that I needed to include my daughter on . I asked her if she wanted to join me and her response was under one condition…..that she didn’t have to run….what the hell? I said fine, you just have to hold all my crap at the finish line. She was cool with that. I used some of my Flex points to book the hotel and was able to get into the Millenium Premier in Times Square. So we were good to go. We caught an early flight out the day before. The flight was awful! It was turbulent the whole way and we were both nauseous even after we landed because we had an hour Uber ride to the hotel which was as close to a real life game of Mario Cart and Frogger together.
We finally arrived at our hotel and were actually able to check in. We unpacked and literally just sat for a bit to get our equilibriums back. We then ventured out to have lunch because once we ate we knew we would feel better. We ended up at the famous Juniors restaurant and I ordered a huge rueben. 
After we ate , we roamed around Times Square, took in lots of shops, scenery and of course a trip back to Juniors a few hours later…why you ask? For chocolate martinis and cheesecake. We were in Big Apple Heaven!
We then worked our way back to the hotel to relax. One of the extra bonuses of the weekend was seeing 2 Broadway musicals. Tonight we were seeing “Jagged Little Pill”. The highlight of this evening was that a local Grosse Pointe young man and also another friend of my daughter’s from musical theatre were both making their Broadway debuts! The show was unbelievable! After the curtain call we headed back to the hotel, it was already 11:30 pm and I had a race to run in the morning. I did get sidetracked on the walk over and grabbed a hot dog from a vendor with extra mustard…. hey, its protein, I think?
RACE DAY
The race was at 10am so I was up at 8am to find coffee and some protein. I hit up a Starbucks and found both. I headed back upstairs to wake up Sleeping Beauty and got dressed to head over to Central Park. The weather was perfect. It was sunny and 36 degrees. We grabbed an Uber and headed over. We found the starting line, grabbed my race bib and got ready to run. Today felt different and this race changed everything for me. Let me explain… Since I started this journey I have had the goal of breaking a 10 minute mile . I got super close in Arizona but today it finally happened. I felt my stride was smoother and I was just coasting better. I crossed the finish line and looked down at my Garmin and saw my pace…… 9.52 !!!! My results came in as a text and it was correct. I got a bit weepy as I approached Kendall and told her the news. We high fived and then she asked me if I was going to barf…wow, that’s my support system, LOL. We grabbed an Uber back to the hotel and I showered and got ready for lunch. We had lunch reservations with a friend of hers who attends Julliard. We took Ryan to an Italian restaurant and visited for at least 2 hours. We ate Baked Ziti and Chicken Piccata and enjoyed every bite. We said our goodbyes and headed back to shop a few more shops and then sorta got sidetracked again for more cheesecake. This time at an Irish pub. I had Baileys cheesecake and she had bread pudding.
We grabbed a quick nap and got ready for Broadway musical #2, Mean Girls! We walked to 58th street for this one which was 10 blocks away and yup, grabbed another hot dog. The musical was fantastic. Very funny and entertaining. We headed back around 11:30pm but guess who was hungry AGAIN??? I dragged my daughter into a Mexican restaurant for guacamole , salsa and chips and after that we finally called it a night. Quote of the trip was from my daughter when she said she had never seen anyone eat as much as I do…LOL, this is why I run ! We flew back to Detroit and capped out my year with 16 states so far. It has been amazing and I have learned so much about myself . I have conquered many fears and have pushed myself to reach these goals. 2020 is going to be great. I am kicking it off in Georgia ! Stay tuned.