5:29 sat in large blue type on the live result screen.
The race was the New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile. New York Road Runners placed the start on Fifth Avenue near East 80th Street, with the finish area near Grand Army Plaza.
My heat began at 9:20 that morning. Five minutes and twenty-nine seconds later, I was done. The same-day result listed the distance as one mile, the finish time as 5:29, and the average pace as 5:29 per mile.
There was something satisfying about the math requiring no conversion.
Less than two months earlier, I had run 20:45 at a Prospect Park 5K. That race had been important because it put a finish time on my return from a stress fracture. The Fifth Avenue Mile was another useful mark, but it asked for a different effort. There was no long course to settle into. The entire race fit between two points on one avenue.
NYRR organized the day in heats and asked each runner to arrive before the assigned start. The first race began at 8:00. My part of it came later that morning and took less time than a normal warmup.
The live screen still labeled the result unofficial when I saved it. It also showed the start and finish times, down to the second. The number I cared about was already there.
Five twenty-nine was not a return to the long races I had done before the injury. It was one hard mile in the middle of rebuilding. I had a number on my chest, a measured course in front of me, and another finish time afterward.
This one fit on a phone screen.