Forget champagne — these New Year’s Eve revelers were chasing a runner’s high.
As the clock struck midnight on January 1, thousands of New Yorkers in sneakers, gym clothes, and yes, festive party glasses took off through Central Park, racing in the annual New York Road Runners’ Midnight Run through Central Park.
“I want to think that if I ring in the New Year in this healthy way, it’s how I’ll conduct my whole year,” Lisa Hernandez, who has participated in the event every year since 2015, told The Post.
While first event in 1979 drew 1,600 runners, nearly 5,000 signed up this year, showing up for a DJed pre-race party — and some exercise, jogging past the Loeb Boathouse, Turtle Pond and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.
“Sometimes the way you bring in the year can set the stage for the year to come,” said Ted Metellus, NYRR’s chief event production officer and race director. “For four miles you can think about the goals you accomplished or plan to accomplish as you run.”
