Let it Burn

Oh hey, happy New Year. Only two weeks in and finally writing the FIRST recap of the year.

A couple of us participated in the NYRR New Year's Eve Midnight 4 Miler in Central Park. While hundreds of thousands of revelers packed Times Square to watch a ball drop, me, Brennan Feldhausen, Mike Mashner and my brother Kevin raced in Central Park under the backdrop of an amazing fireworks display. This is definitely a must-do race and I would encourage you - if you don't have plans one year, go up and run it! We left Baltimore in the morning and got into the City early afternoon. We had a lot of time to kill, which due to the cold meant we were bar hopping on a Tuesday afternoon. We picked up our packets, ate some dinner, and around 11 started making our way towards the race. At the amphitheater they have a DJ, performers, a dance party - it's a lot of fun. The countdown to the race start coincides with the countdown to midnight, and as that was happening, we all went into "race mode" and forgot it was a time to celebrate. Gun goes off, and off we go, through the undulating darkness of Central Park.

Before the race I assumed we'd just chill out and enjoy it, but I was glad that nobody had those ideas when it came down to it, because it was much more fun to treat it as a race. Brennan came through at 24:15, Mike at 24:45, and I was a few seconds behind at 24:53. Kevin finished up just under 30 minutes. After the race we enjoyed the rest of the dance party, which ended at 1, before going to a local establishment. By the time we got back to NJ it had become a late night, so I would highly recommend having a place to stay in NYC!

Outside of Erik T. Orberg, who ran to an 11th place (out of 3000) finish at the Vienna Silversterlauf 5.3km in Austria on NYE, nobody else really did anything cool or notable so I won't recant.

Mike Mashner earned the first Purple Drink Athlete of the Week of 2014!