Running in Central Park

One of the great things about NYC is that you can run in Central Park, which is just so quintessentially New York.  EXCEPT if the only day you choose to run in Central Park is Sunday, which is the quintessential day for races that you end up crashing.  So far, the last 2 Sundays, I've accidentally crashed large, organized races.  

The first was a women's half marathon:

 The second was a Scottish 10k—no photos on that one.  

I run on Sundays in the park since my gym is closed on Sundays (why-for-the-love-of-god?!!?) and so I'm left to find exercise elsewhere.  Unfortunately, Sunday is the day for races in the park.  The Universe only knows what I'll encounter this coming weekend.  And it's awkward because there are crowds cheering for the people running in the race.  I'm left awkwardly feeding off the energy of people running much further distances than me and having paid for the privilege to do it or left awkwardly passing them as they are struggling through their last 2 miles and the race people have already started packing up the hydration stations...  Not ideal.  But is that going to stop me from running in Central Park, which is a mere 6 blocks from my apartment? Um, No!