So this was it. #9. The last chapter in my nearly yearlong effort to qualify for the 2010 New York City Marathon. And I did it. WOW did I do it.
Before setting out for this race, I was in a terrible mood. I went to meet Kelly on race morning and all I could think about was how cranky I was. I was also so tired that I walked past the Borough Hall subway station I needed to enter in order to get there. Once I actually made it in, I found out the 4 or 5 trains I wanted weren't running, and I needed to take the 2 to Fulton Street and transfer.
Fulton Street, if you haven't had the pleasure of its company, is a labyrinth. Every time I'm in there, I expect to see the Minotaur. To get to the 4/5 trains from the 2 requires a lengthy walk, but that walk is not in a straight line. It involves stairs and walking along other trains' platforms and just when you think that you will surely emerge in New Jersey, finally, you just have to turn one more corner and climb one more flight of stairs and then wait for 20 minutes, but eventually the 4/5 will come. This really helped my mood, by the way.
Kelly and I ran into Coach Jaz (on her birthday, coming to cheer us all on even though she had a leg injury - THAT is dedication!) on the 4/5 platform, which was nice as she gave us a pep talk while we waited (and waited). As I talked, I realized that this race I'd been joking about all summer was making me far more nervous than I'd realized. Hence at least part of my morning crankiness. Here's the deal: I'm a terrible sprinter. It also takes me about three miles to warm up during a run - for this reason, I hate running 5Ks because they are all warm-up to me. So the idea of running one mile as fast as I possibly could was getting me down.
The pace on my NYRR bibs says 8:52 min/mile. I ran that pace during a 5-mile race in January in Central Park, in the middle of my marathon training when I was in peak shape for that distance. I've never come close since - I ran 9:16 min/mile in a 10K over the summer, but I had no real concept of ever matching my 8:52.
Jaz reminded me that I'd been taking her strength training class for four months (save some time out for health issues) and that I had a lot more in me than I was giving myself credit for. She said she thought Kelly and I would both break 8 minutes in the mile. We laughed.
Once we arrived at 80th Street and 5th Avenue, we checked our bags at the starting line and got into the corral. Because this race was conducted in heats by gender and age, there was only one corral of women 30-39 running with us rather than the usual long line of gates and runners seeded by pace. We chatted with some friends. I took a look around and regretted by decision to wear a long-sleeve shirt since everyone else seemed to be in tank tops or sports bras. But it was cold! (Well, 60ish. But I'm from Tennessee.)
Then the gun went off. A real gun. A really loud gun. All of us looked around like, was that a gun? and then realized that we needed to run. And so we ran. I tripped over the starting line (awesome) because I wanted to make sure my D-tag registered on the start mat. Because everyone in the corral had different paces, I wasn't surrounded by people running the same speed. Some people shot out ahead while others settled into comfortable jogs. I decided I didn't want to be in the latter group, though I easily could have been. All I needed was to finish the Fifth Avenue Mile to be in the marathon, I said - I don't need to RACE it.
But I did. I passed about 10 people and thought, damn, I am running really fast. Then I passed a marker indicating I'd gone a quarter mile. My lungs started to hurt. Then I hit 72nd Street and the half-mile marker. My body was in serious pain. But I could still breathe. I decided not to push more. Hit the three-quarter-mile mark, felt like my lungs were going to burst, and found a little more energy. When I hit the finish mat, I doubled over in pain and exhaustion. Then I looked up at the clock, which still had not hit 8 minutes. I broke 8 minutes! Then suddenly people were everywhere. The finish was a mob scene of people wanting free bagels (um, you only ran a mile) and water bottles (WAY cool souvenir, by the way, NYRR - I will gladly take more of these!!!) and their bags, which the organizers helpfully threw all over the ground in the same line of people clamoring for bagels and water bottles.
I found Kelly and we knew we had both broken 8 miles. We headed for a subway, went back to Brooklyn, and were on the Brooklyn Heights promenade eating not-free-but-much-better bagels an hour after we started our race. Not bad!
NYRR didn't post results for the Mile until later Saturday afternoon, by which time I was at my father-in-law's house on Long Island. I looked up the results on my iPhone and blinked once, twice, three times: 7:02.
THAT'S RIGHT EVERYONE. 7:02. SEVEN OH TWO. SEVEN MINUTES AND TWO SECONDS.
I only started running in May 2008. At that point I couldn't conceive of finishing the half marathon I'd signed up to do. Now I've done three half marathons and one full marathon, and I've qualified for my second full marathon. And somewhere along the way I got strong enough both to overcome my own self-doubt and to run a 7:02 mile. Thanks, running.
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