Tonight I had the most amazing evening with the lovely and speedy Gia! My new running coach met me in Central Park after a long day of work for a diagnostic run.

I ran a mile from the office to meet her and was thrilled with the crisp, cool weather. I wasn’t sure how to dress for the weather and unsure of how much the temperature would drop. Luckily my crop pants, marathon finisher shirt, and marathon jacket was perfect!

The city was glistening with evening and holiday lights of white, red, and green!

Once I met up with Gia the learning started immediately! Did you know that every lamp post in Central Park is labeled to help runners find their way? For example, this lamp post is on the West side of the city at 59th and 7th Avenue. Pretty cool eh?

We spent the next 4.3 miles catching up, rehashing my marathon experience, talking about blogs, and enjoying the evening. This was my first true night time run in Central Park and I’m please to report that we both felt very safe! There were other runners, dog walkers, and a Central Park safety patrol in the park as well.

We started our run with a 1 mile warm-up and then did some interval work for the remaining 2.5 miles before doing a 3/4 mile cool down. It was an amazing fete that I was able to keep up a conversation during our run as our average pace ended up being 9:44 which is not normally my “conversational pace.”

I’ll be sharing more about our training and my goals in the coming week as Gia is putting together my National Half Marathon training program this weekend! While Marc was a great first coach and served the purpose during the marathon, I’m really looking forward to working with someone whom I know personally, has run many half and full marathons, is located in New York City, and has now run along side me!

I am hoping that I can make a week night run a regular part of my training routine as this really helped calm me down after a long and stressful day. Now that I’m home I feel very relaxed and ready for bed!

I’m off to spend a few minutes stretching and foam rolling! Good night!