My dear friend Brittany started a blog chronicling her adventures as a newfound runner. Check it out here…
Miss Brit and I have been close friends since our college days way back when and now we’re virtual running partners since she lives many hundreds of miles away in North Carolina. She recently dominated the Philadelphia Half Marathon and will be running the National SunTrust Half Marathon in a few weeks.
Brittany and me in Philly last year… 
Four out of the five borough half marathons complete! Yay.
A recap of today’s race…
* I woke up at 3:45 am…after a few hours of barely sleep, sigh. Let me repeat: 3:45 am.
* On the way to the NYRR busses, I passed many people still out from the night before.
* It is very cold at 4:30 am.
* I was a bit warmer after I spilled my HOT COFFEE all down my shirt and shorts. Fail.
* We got to the park around 5:20 am, race started at 7:00 am. So I took a nap on the slide.
* Oh yeah, I forgot my phone at home, whoops. I felt completely naked. Thankfully there were lots of landmarks in the playground near the start and finish so finding everyone wasn’t as problematic as it could have been.
* I felt good despite sleeping for 3 hours and not having my coffee.
* The course was sucky. It was through Queens neighborhoods, narrow roads, lots of ups and downs.
* Aside from the first 3 miles of running shoulder to shoulder with people, they were quick. For most of the race, I was hitting 8ish minute miles, I felt fast but it felt ok.
*Then hills happened at mile 7. And I was sad.
* Saw some hookers probably still on the prowl from Saturday night.
* And my right knee started hurting, but nothing I couldn’t run on.
* Had a slow 10th mile, I was tired.
* AND MILE 13 WAS UPHILL. AND STEEP.
* I said “oh fuck” out loud and the people around me laughed.
* Finished in 1:58:50
Not a GREAT race, but I’ll take it. The weather was PERFECT aside from freezing my butt off at 5 am. Though my struggle with the steep inclinations in the last few miles really proves that I need to up my mileage on my long runs. It’s boot camp time, especially if I want to run a sub 4 hour marathon in Philly in two months…
And this is me after the race to prove that I really was a goon and spilled my coffee all over me. I’m a winner!
So…..the half marathon didn’t go as well as I hoped. If you’ve seen my facebook, you know the story, if not:
I ran well the first half, in hilly central park. I felt hydrated and strong and took those hills and passed people all along the way. Then after mile 7, we turned out of the park and down 7th Ave. The crowds and flatness were very welcomed. I took a gel at the mile 8 marker and accidentally snorted water, which burned. Barrelled through the next mile, then as I was approaching mile 9, I had trouble breathing and kept coughing from the exhaust from the cars driving and idling next to us. The last quarter of the race seemed so long. The air was heavy and I was drenched from sweat and humidity, I hit a wall. Not enough miles logged before this race, I just wasn’t prepared. Judging by the first half, I could have PRed, but definitely not with the second half. And I lost a toenail. 
I was fine at the end, not exhausted…just done. 2:05 finish, my worst half, but I honestly don’t think I could have ran any better, my feet just weren’t having it. Now I know I have a lot of miles to run before Nov 22.
Ryan Hall placed third, his feet also weren’t having it. One of the things I like about running is that its you against you. Everyone runs the same race, but you are really competing against yourself.
Other than the race, I had an enjoyable weekend. I met up with my Canadian twin Lana for drinks and rock on Friday night and what was going to be a sober an early evening turned into a late night fueled by many glasses of cabernet. We made fun of hussies and finally enjoyed some down time with the brits. Good night all around.
Walked ALLLLLL around Manhattan on Saturday and finished the day with a fantastic dinner in Little Italy. A few pictures of our random travels below… when I post a regular photo, wordpress distorts it, so if you click the thumbnail, it goes to the larger photo in this so-called gallery I have.
Tomorrow I’m running the NYC Half Marathon, my fifth half marathon in 2009.
I wanted to PR this race, but seeing how I’ve deviated from my marathon training plan and the past month has sucked for me in regards to running (and well, nearly everything else). And the top of my right foot has been bothering me, every time it pushes up, it’s a little bit more painful than the step before. Also, there’s a heat advisory, despite the 7 am start time, and 15,000 other runners to weave through. Central Park races are tough enough when there’s a 5,000 runner limit, I can’t imagine what this race will be like with triple that. Regardless, I’m going to try to run my best and have a good time while doing so. To add to the fun of running 13.1 miles, they close off Times Square and we run down the West Side Highway and finish in Battery Park, so we really do run through most of Manhattan. Unlike the rest of the halves, there is course entertainment and fans throughout most of the course. Plus many more fluid and misting stations. All the info is here: http://www.nyrr.org/races/2009/nychalf/index.asp#
If you want to track me, you can do so here: http://fanalert.nychalfmarathon.org/Alerts.aspx
If you want to watch it live, NYRR will be broadcasting the melee at 7 am: http://www.nyrr.org/races/2009/nychalf/index.asp
If you want to watch the highlights and you live in the NYC area, ABC 7 will air an hour of the race at 11:35 pm
You have to be in the corral by 6:30 am…which means I’ll be waking up at 5:00 am so I can properly eat, get dressed, and make my way over to the start. I haven’t woken up at 5:00 am since…I don’t even know when. I just hope I get plenty of sleep beforehand. I have trouble sleeping as it is, let alone when waking up before the sun does. Half marathon breakfast always includes: 16 ounces of water as soon as i wake up, 8 ounces of coffee plus soy milk (no sugar), 1/2 cup of steel cut oatmeal with almonds and cinnamon, 8 ounce smoothie made with soy milk/banana/protein powder. And of course I’m always famished when I finish.
In addition to an elite field, Ryan Hall is also running this event. Ryan Hall is my favorite distance runner (and most of America’s). He caught my interest after winning the US Olympic Marathon Team Trials in 2007 (same race that one of my other favorite runners, Ryan Shay, collapsed and died while running) and I’ve followed his career since. He’s also on the Asics team, and I’ve only worn Asics for the past thirteen years, so that only helped his cause. A year later, The New Yorker wrote a fantastic piece about his life and running. Granted, he’ll probably win the race while I’m still trudging through the loop in Central Park, but hopefully I’ll see him run past me or at least on the podium at the end.
I’ll let you know how it goes…
|
