Half Marathons as Training Runs: Staten Island Half Marathon, October 10, 2010; Nike Women's Half Marathon, October 17, 2010

I have reached an interesting point in my running career, such as it is, in that the half marathon distance has become less of a milestone and more of a long training run. In some ways, I regret this - my first race with Team in Training was a half marathon and it was such a momentous thing for me to cross that finish line. On the other hand, it's been an adventure for me to take that distance and do different things with it. I've raced it in Chattanooga and managed a sub-2. I've slogged through it in New Jersey and ridden roller coasters after it in Coney Island. All in all, I've run eight half marathons.

But when marathon training, as I have been all summer, the half marathon becomes less of a goal in and of itself than a piece of the larger puzzle. In the last few weeks, I have run two half marathons as long runs - including a reprise of the same course that provided that first big racing thrill for me in San Francisco two years ago. In many ways running a half marathon as a training run in preparation for a marathon is a great idea - you get your race-day routine honed, and you can test out your strategies with clothing (arm warmers? shorts or capris?) and gels (I've recently begun a love affair with AccelGel) on an actual race course. It's given me a new appreciation for the distance. What I've lost in thrills, I've gained in appreciation for the science of the half.

* * * * *

I ran the Staten Island Half Marathon on October 10(10/10/10!) with friends. This is part of the New York Road Runners' Half Marathon Grand Prix - there is a half in each borough every year, and if you run all five you get some kind of swag. I have only ever run two in a year - the Bronx and Brooklyn in 2009, and Brooklyn and now Staten Island this year. Next year, I've resolved to try all five.

Turns out Staten Island is pretty enjoyable. I've only been there once before, and then only as long as it took me to turn around in the ferry terminal and reboard the boat to return to the Manhattan side. So it was nice to get a look at the place. I was also grateful just to be outside, since three days before the race I was felled by a nasty stomach bug. I had called out of work and laid prone on my couch; I also had barely eaten a thing in 72 hours by the time I woke up Sunday morning.

Guess it says something about my progress as a runner, and about my strength-training program, that I was even able to finish the Staten Island Half. I won't lie - it was rough. I ran with my friend Michele, and I think had I been alone I might have quit. The day was beautiful, sunny and about 65 and clear - but running without fuel in the tank is difficult, and a few times I just felt too weak to keep going. Plus Gatorade and gels tasted funky to me because of my sour stomach and I was just struggling to get any calories in.

By the time Michele and I hit the turnaround (the course was an out-and-back) at Mile 6, though, I figured I had to finish because now I was as far away from the finish line as I could be. On the return, the course went through Fort Wadsworth, where runners wait for the start of the NYC Marathon - so that was cool. The not-so-cool part was that Fort Wadsworth is up a large hill, and that really taxed my limited reserves.

Something about the race situation got to me at the end, and I was able to pick up my pace slightly to get over the finish line. I made faces and rock 'n' roll hand gestures



at the race photographer and hit the finish line in 2:12 - not bad considering all the strikes against me. I'd love to come back next year and really try to race Staten Island, because the course seems like one I could fly on.

All in all, Staten Island showed me that I can finish strong even on a really bad day. I don't feel like I would fold in a longer race even if I felt depleted - I will be able to look back at this half and see that I depended on my friends, I stuck to a nutrition/hydration plan and I recited mantras (well, I sang "Break My Stride," but whatever works, you know?). My mental game has improved even more than my physical one in the last two years - something more valuable to me, really, than the feat of 26.2.

* * * * *

On October 17, I returned to San Francisco and the Nike Women's Half Marathon. In the fall of 2008, this was my first event with Team in Training. At the time, 13.1 was the farthest I had ever run, and it was such an amazing feeling to round the corner onto the Great Highway and cross that finish line. I wondered if it would feel the same this year.

I've been plagued with injuries while training for NYC this summer. It started with tight hips, spread to a recurrence of IT Band Syndrome that flared in both hip and knee, and ended with a shin splint above my right ankle that had me convinced I'd suffered a stress fracture and ended my season. An MRI showed that it wasn't a stress fracture, and my physical therapist was able to go in and massage out the knots and help me keep my calf muscles stretched. Turns out my arches collapse with every step, which explains both the bouts with ITBS and the stress to my shin. Eventually the pain lessened but I missed three long runs and many shorter training runs while I waited to be diagnosed. I was disgruntled and discouraged. Why was I doing this? I asked myself. Why a marathon?

Turns out, a great half marathon is a no-fail cure for the marathon blues. Cleared to run by the physical therapist and armed with brand-new orthotics in my Brooks Adrenalines, I arrived in San Francisco with strict orders not to race, but simply to use the course as a long, slow distance run. A long, slow distance run with a Tiffany necklace waiting at the end. The slogan for this year's race was "I Run to Be" and I spent a fair amount of time thinking about what I run to be. Do I run just to be a marathoner? Because that's what this summer has felt like. I've spent so much time training that I tend to lose focus on what makes my individual runs interesting. So I decided to enjoy San Francisco to the max.

Also, my mom came with me to hang out in San Francisco and to watch me race. That's pretty cool, especially since she's also coming to New York. We had a fantastic weekend - we ate amazing Vietnamese, Mexican, Italian and Japanese food, memorized the bus and cable-car system and used it to get all over town, and saw some old friends. We got into a sold-out art exhibit at the de Young Museum using my press pass and we drank coffee at all the places the East Coast hasn't scored yet, like Peet's and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

The day we arrived, we picked up my race number right away and I got all my race stuff laid out in the hotel room. The Nike "Expotique" was less an expo than a mess of free Gatorade/Luna Bar/Kashi samples, so I strolled through but didn't get too caught up in it. Two years ago, I was so focused on Team in Training stuff that I didn't get to enjoy the city. This year, I was more focused on hanging with Mom and staying calm and relaxed. This was a smart strategy. I did go for a warm-up run with the team the day before the race and enjoyed that.

Sunday morning, October 17, I met the rest of my Team in Training group in the Union Square Marriott lobby. I was test-driving a new pair of SmartWool armwarmers I hoped to wear in NYC and my singlet had my name on the front and a shout-out to Greg on the back. One chocolate AccelGel and one vanilla in my pocket. My NYC 2010 hat, so I could keep one eye on my bigger goal (and the other one on the fireman holding that Tiffany necklace!).

My friend Hannah - my running buddy during a super-tough TNT run earlier this summer and a fellow NYC runner using SF as a training ground - joined me and we checked our bags first thing. Then we stood around in Union Square with 19,998 other women and waited for the start gun. Hannah brought me purple gloves, which was awesome and which I ended up giving to our coach Radie, who was going to be out on the race course all day and was already shivering. The Nike Women's race is a major Team in Training event and there are purple people from all over the country there. I find it quite inspiring.

And we were off! I saw my mom at the corner near the start line, but I could not move over in the crowd enough for her to see me. I found out later she was really upset about missing me and felt terrible! Hannah and I quickly found out that there was no way to get into a smooth pace on this very crowded course, unless you wanted to waste a ton of energy weaving through. We did not. We also vowed not to stop at any of the water tables, which were pretty epic clusterfucks. We ditched our throwaway shirts two miles in at the designated recycling spot and saw Hannah's stepfather in Fisherman's Wharf, around the three-mile mark.

Four miles in came the first significant hill, and the first time we realized how prepared we were for said hills. All our Jazzy bootcamp and hill repeats with TNT paid off in dividends as we charged ahead. Coming off that hill, some girl tried to push us both out of the way. So uncool! She was not, it should be said, wearing a TNT shirt.

Six miles in, the HUGE hill popped up. It was rough going, but our reserves kicked in and we were gone. Coach James saw us at the top and took this photo of us:



as we crested the hill. So awesome. Two more miles of rolling hills, broken up by a bunch of people handing the best orange slices you've ever tasted, followed. Then a giant downhill by the ocean featuring speakers blasting "Don't Stop Believin'." When I hit this hill two years ago, I realized I was going to finish my very first 13.1 and live to tell the tale. This time, I realized that I had run 10 miles without even blinking an eye, without any pain, and not only was I going to finish this race strong, I was going to finish my marathon strong. Just like that, my mental game, blocked by all my injuries and fear of failure - was back. It was a great moment. Not even the rain that started falling here could tarnish that. (I later found out that the full marathoners on our team, and our coaches, took the brunt of that rain and still had great days. Pretty awesome.)

Hannah and I finished strong, shrieking "Brooklyn!" into the finish line in about 2:25 - where I saw my mom! And she saw me! And we jumped up and down and shrieked more! And then I got my Tiffany necklace and my finisher's t-shirt and Mom and I met up with a friend from Chattanooga who took us for coffee and pancakes and a tour of her wonderful neighborhood. That night I had sushi with Mom and beers with my coaches and the Team in Training staff. The next day Mom and I went to Sears and had 18 tiny pancakes between us, and I got a shirt that said "I Run to Be...Closer to My Coffee" (finally! the true meaning of that slogan!) then went to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square and rode a cable car before catching red-eyes back to our respective homes. I want to do it all again.

A Tale of Two Half Marathons

Tra la, tra la, the lusty month of May...so the song goes. I guess it applies to me in terms of lust for racing: I ran two half marathons in May.*

(*But wait, you say, I think you're missing a race! So I am going to mention quickly that I ran the JFK Runway Run 5K on April 18, which does not merit its own entry because it could not even live up to its very name. A race that is supposed to be run on the runway at JFK Airport, which requires a lot of time and energy to get to, should actually incorporate the runway. So, grrr, JFK Rotary Club.)

Back to those half marathons. Which I ran. Both of them. In the same month. Lustily. Same distance, same metro area, very different outcomes. You can see it in the photos above: in the first, I resemble a dying animal; in the second, I'm beaming.

The Long Branch Half Marathon, part of the New Jersey Marathon Festival, was...hot. Very hot. Ninety degrees in the shade, humid, dehydrating hot. Suck the life out of your race hot. Photo #1 hot.

I ran this race with Team in Training, and had ostensibly been preparing for it since November. The truth was that the TNT season was so long (our first practice was the week before Thanksgiving!) that I kind of forgot about this race until just before it happened. I had a big project at work that required my attention. And I also was invited to audition for Jeopardy! (The invitation arrived in January, but the actual audition was held three days before my race.) That was one very cool experience - they asked a question about my birthday ("The holiday that has been celebrated on June 14 each year since 1885. What is FLAG DAY!")! It's a sign! - but again, loss of focus. See? I can't even write this post.

So in between all the editing (and apologizing for the wedding I missed on its account) and answering trivia questions, I was lucky I found any time at all to focus on 13.1. For my last pre-race TNT practice that week, I packed two left sneakers. My mind - and subsequently, my heart - just wasn't in it.

On Saturday, May 1, I met my road-trip mates at the 7th Avenue Diner & Donut Shop for brunch before we hit the road. Five girls, lots of laughs, even more carbs. Then we hit the road. I think you won't blame me if I say that the car trips down and back to Jersey were the highlight of my weekend. I've met some awesome people through Team in Training, and our little road trip gang was no exception. Love you Kelly, Christy, Michele and Mary!

Once we got down to Long Branch, we checked into the Holiday Inn, hit a craft store for supplies to make gifts for our mentees, dashed into the race expo to get our bibs/chips/shirts, and went to the TNT NYC team meeting and the pasta dinner. Then back to the room to get race-ready - clothes laid out, shirts decorated, D-tags on shoes. The girls came by to get their gifts prepared. Then finally we got ready to get a little sleep, only to discover that there was a car bomb in Times Square being covered relentlessly on TV. One more thing to lose focus over!

Race morning was hot. No doubt about it - even by the water, on the boardwalk where we lined up at the start, it was already in the 70s. This race should have started at 8 or even 7 a.m. - NOT at 9 a.m. Even if they'd made a last-minute change, no one would have blamed them. But they didn't, and so it was hot.

Less than a mile into the race, we turned off the boardwalk and the full force of the heat hit like an oven. Suddenly, there was no more breeze off the water - but all of the humidity stayed behind. I passed the two-mile marker and knew it was going to be a very long day. I said as much, and Kelly rightfully told me to shut it.

I will give huge props to the people of Long Branch who stood out in their yards with garden hoses to spray down us runners. (Fewer props to the runner dude who filled his water bottle with one of said hoses while a line formed behind him to get sprayed. Loser.)

Six miles in, I knew I had to slow down. I knew when I started that I wouldn't PR. I now knew I just needed to finish without collapsing from heatstroke. I dumped water over my head, refilled my bottle with water and Gatorade, and settled in to a drastically slower pace.

Eight miles in, I finally saw a coach I knew (I saw a couple of the Manhattan coaches earlier on the course and they ignored us - NICE). Amy kept pace with me for a mile while I complained bitterly about the heat and lack of water between miles 7 and 10. I saw Coach Jim at mile 10 and he ran with me for a bit - at this point, I knew I would finish and told him not to waste energy.

When the boardwalk - and the final mile - came into view at the end of the race, I overheard a woman say she now knew what heaven looked like. I still maintain that it looks more like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but she wasn't totally off the mark. The last mile felt so much better. I ran into Mary at the end and we crossed the finish line together. My final time: 2:13, an extra minute for each mile off my PR. That's how freaking hot it was.

We collected our medals and hats and checked in with TNT.

I think I can safely say I won't do this race again. Just too much pain for not enough gain.

Now, the Brooklyn Half Marathon on Saturday, May 22 was a completely different story. See Photo #2!

This race, I love. I had a good run last year despite some serious organizational issues on the part of New York Road Runners. It's in my backyard (aka Prospect Park), it finishes at one of the happiest places on earth (Coney Island) and you get discounted roller coaster rides at the end. Really, what's not to love?

Maybe that 7 a.m. start time...but after my experience in Long Branch, I didn't mind this at all. Even getting up at 5 to eat - not a problem.

Maybe that they put bagwatch in the center of the park...but I know my way around, so no big deal.

Maybe Marty Markowitz...fuhgeddaboutit!

The Brooklyn Half this year started with two laps of Prospect Park. I like to think of this like a Cherry Tree race without the third loop - in other words, a piece of cake. Mostly, I wanted to save energy here by not trying to push ahead of people and by taking the hills efficiently. Kelly and I saw lots of friends here and it was just nice. It is NICE to run a race in your backyard.

On our way downhill on our first loop, finishing our third mile, we heard sirens. Already, I thought? Someone is hurt? And then I realized...no, it's just the LEADER of the entire race, lapping me fully - and that's his pace car.

When we finished the second loop and exited the park at Mile 7, my right hip started to hurt. I've been having lots of IT-related hip issues lately. But I was proud of myself - I took stock of the pain, decided it wouldn't cripple me, decided it wasn't really worth slowing down over, and kept going. I am not so good at the mental game of running yet, and this took a lot of willpower on my part - but I did it.

By Mile 9,I was ready for a water stop, and I poured a bit over my head as well. I stopped at Mile 10 as well, more for a mental boost then than for any actual hydration.

For the last two miles on Ocean Parkway, I sang "Break My Stride" to myself, over and over. I find that if I do this, my pace stays steady and it's easier to push through pain at the end of a race where I'm really exerting myself.

Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer" was playing when I hit the Coney Island boardwalk, and I sang that too. Out loud, this time!

And then finally I finished, in pain, sweaty, salty and exhilarated. I did it! And I'm at Coney Island! (For the record, I finished in 2:05, which I'm quite pleased with although I would have liked to get closer to my PR.) Kelly and I got the cute photo at the top of this post taken before picking up our bags.

Postrun activities included a run into the ocean, an Egg McMuffin, a ride on the Cyclone (that I loved and Kelly hated, and we have another awesome photo to prove it) and a Coney Island Lager - all before noon! Then there were more Coney Island Lagers as we met up with friends at Coney Island's premier outdoor bar, Beer Island - my new favorite spot in what is already a favorite spot.

Brooklyn: same time, next year? OK.

Sub-2! And Other Things That Happened in February

I ran three races in February. I think this was an impressive feat because February is the shortest month of the year. Even more impressive, two of the three races were 10 miles or longer. Even MORE impressive, I ran a sub-2 half marathon, one of my big running goals for 2010.

And then I forgot to write about it all.



First up was the Valentine's Day 5K in Prospect Park on - yes - Valentine's Day, February 14, 2010 sponsored by Brooklyn Road Runners and Slope Sports. I found this race courtesy of my friends at NYCRuns.com. If you run in New York, you should be hooked up with this website. This is also how I found the super-awesome Coney Island Turkey Trot. Join! Now!

This was a nice run - one loop around the park, easy. I ran with Kelly and finished in 29:39. Lady Southpaw played the afterparty at the KofC and rocked the house as always. Followed the race up with brunch at the estimable 7th Avenue Diner & Donuts with the girls.



On February 21, I ran the Cherry Tree 10-Miler in Prospect Park, sponsored by the Prospect Park Track Club and Slope Sports. This is a tough, tough race - you may remember I had some trouble with it last year. This year, I had a great race (finished in about 1:32). I credit better training and overall fitness, gorgeous weather and my TNT BK teammates for the support and the coaches who cheered us all on.

And then, the very next week, I ran a sub-2 half marathon!



I ran the Scenic City Half Marathon in my hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee, on February 27.

The photo at the top of this post is of me around mile 11 of this race. Don't you like my arm warmers? I bought those with a Slope Sports discount I received for doing the Cherry Tree race. I gotta say, Kara Goucher is right - arm warmers rule. The weather was near-perfect for a long race - low 40s at the start, warming up to the mid-50s. I ran in shorts and an obnoxiously bright green t-shirt. I didn't want to wear a jacket, since I knew I'd want to ditch it a mile in, but I needed something. And that something was arm warmers.

This race was pretty all-around awesome. I was ready for it, I trained, and I had a goal: to beat two hours.

I was also battling a fair number of personal demons going into this race. Forget April - February is my cruelest month. I knew running this race hard and having a goal wouldn't eradicate my problems, but it would help me face them head-on.

There was a significant delay at the start because, apparently, the computer wasn't working to activate the start mat, and our timing chips would not register. The clock also wasn't working, but because I was wearing a watch I didn't much care about that. But I knew I wanted an official time. The race organizers should have told us to leave the start area and come back 20 minutes later, but they didn't. So we all stood around, freezing. (Thank you arm warmers.)

At 8:30 a.m., a half hour after we were supposed to start, we were off! To the strains of Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride." Remember that - it comes back into play later, much like the proverbial gun that, if shown in Act I, must be fired by the end of the play.

The race left Finley Stadium, the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga's football stadium, and headed downtown. The first mile or so was a little downhill, which gave me pause as I realized mile 13 would be a little uphill. Sigh.

Running through downtown Chattanooga for the second mile was neat - the river to the left, the aquarium to the right. Straight ahead - giant hill. The third mile was all uphill. I ran this mile on-pace but it was not especially fun.

At mile 4, my family was waiting for me outside the Boathouse restaurant on Amnicola Highway - waving huge green-lettered RUN LELA RUN signs. This was so cool, I can't even tell you. What a boost! Thanks, family! They were so cool that I missed the 4-mile marker. No worries, keep running down Amnicola. The city really should have organized the traffic cutoffs better - runners had to cross traffic heading into town to turn onto the Riverwalk around mile 5.5. I took a Gu here.

The Riverwalk is one of my favorite places in Chattanooga - scenic path that runs, yes, along the Tennessee River. It's very pretty and I just let myself enjoy miles 6-7. Just before the Mile 8 marker, my family was back with their signs. Yay! They told me later that I looked better than everyone around me. I'll give TNT credit for that one.

The next mile was a sick, sick uphill. I've run it before, but not this fast and not this far into a run. Up, up, up, past UTC's practice football field and into the Bluff View Arts District. One more family surprise at the top of the hill!

I'd been keeping pace with a guy for the first 8 miles of the race or so, but I lost him on this uphill. This is partly because I knew what lay on the other side of the uphill - a very serious DOWNHILL. We're talking a nearly vertical downhill here, the result of a course change due to some bridge construction. After I passed my family and headed past the Walnut Street Bridge into the quadbuster, I passed the guy. He was not very happy.

Over the Market Street Bridge onto Frazier Avenue - not bad. I've never run over the Market Street Bridge, but it used to scare me to drive over it as a kid because it sings. It's a drawbridge and driving over the metal grates produces a weird humming noise. Some spectators on Frazier, but my mind was on getting uphill - again - to cross the Veterans Bridge, home of many speeding drives to high school (which I passed in the process - go Bruisers). Never run the Veterans either - but it's neither very scenic nor very fun for running. My legs were sore at this point, and I still had to go back uphill to the top of Bluff View again. Ow. More Gu.

Finally, downhill to the 11-mile marker, which I inadvertently missed while grabbing water. Sweet, sweet swooping downhill back into downtown. Got some water in me and got my legs back.

Little rise, almost missed the 12-mile marker, which had blown over. At this point, I hadn't looked at my watch in a while because I didn't want to know how close I was to my goal. But I figured I was feeling good, I had to be close. So I started singing. To myself. Loudly. "Nobody gonna break my stride, nobody gonna slow me down, oh no..." (This apparently works well as a mantra because I later found that I ran this mile at a 7:42 pace, which is pretty unreal for me.)

Uphill, uphill, ow. Into the homestretch, past the 13-mile marker, stadium in sight. Then the clock came into sight. Hey, it works! And it says...1:58?! I shrieked "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"...and SPRINTED full-on into the finish. High knees, high arms, I was Usain Bolt, people. Hit the mat, look at the watch...

1:59:32 says the watch!!! I did it! Got my medal, had my chip clipped, got a bottle of water, and saw my friend Jody who caught my photo finish. My mom appeared with my fleece and my dad and uncle with their cameras. Time for brunch!

When the official results appeared, I gained a whole second!

1:59:31. Take that, February.

NYRR Fred Lebow Classic 5-Mile, January 9, 2010

That's me, way over on the right with my foot going out of frame. I sacrificed a fair amount of warmth to sport some Team in Training Gear and have my number out prominently during this race, and this is the treatment I get from Brightroom. Hmph.

So there's no photographic proof, but there is proof in the form of numbers. And those numbers show I kicked some major ass in this race. Five miles in 43:40. What those numbers don't show you, and only my new watch (Timex Ironman, a Christmas present from my wonderful dad) showed me, was that I ran negative splits the whole way - and finished with a 7:46 final mile. Kick. Ass.

Did I mention it was about 20 degrees, less with the windchill, at the start? It was cold. Very, very cold. I had to talk to a friend for a few miles just to keep my face from going numb. However, my best races tend to happen in weather like this - I fade quickly in heat.

I started this blog last year with the goal of becoming a runner, as opposed to someone who signed up to do a half marathon and felt compelled to follow through. In the last year I ran a marathon, two half marathons and qualified for the 2010 New York City Marathon by running nine New York Road Runners qualifying races and volunteering at a 10th - another goal I set out to chronicle here. Running my marathon was really hard. I didn't love all of those qualifying races. But I did become a runner. I go out for runs now and it's no longer a struggle. It's become something I have to do, a part of me. I was away from the city over the holidays for three weeks, and while I was gone I made an effort to run regularly, in places both familiar and un-. I found a playground that time forgot near my grandmother's house and discovered that hill training pays off when running in my parents' neighborhood (at one point I found myself running perpendicular to a hill).

Team in Training reeled me in again this year. I signed up to run the Long Branch Half Marathon in New Jersey on May 2 with them, as a way of beginning my training for NYC. They asked me to serve as a mentor captain, which was an honor, and I'm enjoying the challenge of keeping my fellow mentors plugged in. I'll probably follow this season with the fall one and train with them for NYC. There's not enough space on this blog to talk in detail about how much the TNT family has given me, but suffice it to say I owe them a lot more than my fitness, and a lot more than I would likely fundraise even if I participated in every season for the rest of my running-able life.

2009 was one of the most difficult years of my life, personally. I dealt with a salary cut and layoffs at work, lost my grandmother, miscarried twice, struggled with a lot of Deep Thoughts and overall spent the year wondering what, exactly, I had done to deserve such a karmic blow. It was a year of loss. Running kept me sane (well, that's a questionable word - perhaps "balanced" is better) through it all. Remembering that I set goals to improve my speed, my times, my race performances and to qualify for that marathon kept me going. I owe many people - coaches, running partners, friends and family - lots of thanks for getting me through, and here's to a better 2010.

NYC 2010 Qualifying Races #5 and #6: Healthy Kidney 10K, May 16, 2009 and the Brooklyn Half Marathon, May 30, 2009

Here's the story of two races, because your blogger is lazy.



I ran the Healthy Kidney 10K on May 16, a mere three weeks after my marathon. It was my first time doing anything other than a slow, lazy loop around Prospect Park since 26.2 (not counting the miles we ran while cheering on fellow Team in Training spring season folks at the New Jersey Marathon on May 3). Kelly and I drove to the race and ran it together, but failed to anticipate the lack of parking. No spaces ANYWHERE. It didn't help that I'd been running late that morning to meet her and felt terrible. We finally found a spot on the East Side, across the park from the race start, with five minutes to go until gun time and no quarters to be found on either of our persons or in the car. We called a friend to come fill the meter and ran. We later calculated that we ran a full additional mile to the starting line. It started raining on us halfway there (OF COURSE) so we jumped into the queue to cross the starting line soaking wet. Five minutes later, it stopped raining but all of us runners were soaked to the bone for the duration.

I enjoyed this race, mainly for the course, which was a full loop of Central Park that minimized the uphills. I love the uptown part of Central Park, which is quiet and woody and doesn't feel like an urban park at all.

The race took us about an hour to complete at our post-marathon recovery pace and we ended up getting a parking ticket for our troubles - our friend arrived just as the ticket was being written. But, we finished, we felt good and we got another qualifier under our proverbial belts. The tech t-shirt souvenirs were nice. And more people, presumably, have healthier kidneys.



The Brooklyn Half Marathon was yesterday. I had an unusual preparation strategy for this race, which went something like this:

5 weeks prior: Run full marathon in 92-degree heat and 67% humidity.

4 weeks prior: Run 7 miles with friend at the end of her full marathon in pouring rain and persistent chill (foreshadowing. That means keep reading.). Begin running slow 3-mile loops in park with friend.

3 weeks prior: Run 10-K (see: Healthy Kidney 10K saga, above). Continue running in park. Begin taking circuit training class that consists of running uphill holding water bottles and a lot of pushups. Question sanity.

2 weeks prior: Run 7 miles through Brooklyn and across Manhattan Bridge with friends. Become winded. At end of week, run 5-mile loop in Prospect Park, successfully and without massive exhaustion. Sign up for Brooklyn Half Marathon. Plan to run an 8- or even 10-miler beforehand.

1 week prior: Become sick. Go home from work sick the next day. Call out of work sick the day after that. Cough up both lungs to the consternation of several coworkers when you do return to work.

Two days prior: Take the kind of cold medicine that makes you contemplate flying out of your office window (the kind you can only buy behind the pharmacy counter because SOME PEOPLE decided to make meth out of it, that's how awesome it is). Under influence of aforementioned cold medicine, make plans to meet up with lots of people at Brooklyn Half Marathon.

One day prior: Stop taking cold medicine because the heat advisory on the New York Road Runners website calls out pseudoephedrine, aka the meth-maker, as a dehydrator. Foiled again! Drink lots and lots of water. Miss speed-y feeling. Understand meth addicts. Cough. Write gently mocking Facebook status about how New York Road Runners thinks 77 degrees Fahrenheit is hot, and how you ran a marathon in 92-degree heat, haha, in an attempt to psych yourself up. Cough.

Morning of: Exit apartment. Think, hmmm, it is warm out. Comfort self by knowing that New York Road Runners posted that heat advisory, and thus will be out in force with extra water and Gatorade and misters (more foreshadowing). Smugly chuckle, thinking of Nashville.

I met my friend Alex and her friend Michelle at the 15th Street entrance to Prospect Park at 7:15 and we headed to bagcheck. Bagcheck was my first sign that New York Road Runners might have underestimated the wave of humanity that was running the Brooklyn Half. It wasn't disorganized, but the people manning the checkpoints seemed overwhelmed. I saw a lot of TNTers along the way, which was nice, and we all wished each other good luck.

Alex, Michelle and I got into our starting corral, which seemed to be for everyone who had signed up with a pace time over 8 minutes. That was a lot of people. It took us about 20 minutes to cross the starting line. The first wave of runners passed us while we were still waiting, in fact.

At one point during the endless patter of runners making it to the starting mat, a familiar, heavily Brooklyn-accented voice rose over the din. Alex and I turned to each other and said, "Is that Marty Markowitz?" Indeed, it was Marty himself on the mike, welcoming runners to his fiefdom.

I made the mistake just before the start line of bypassing a Port-a-Potty, which came back to haunt me about three miles later.

The first few miles were good. Tackled the North Hill in the park with no problem. Even made it around the morale-sucking lower stretch of the park still feeling cheerful. Appreciated the separation of the faster runners (those who lapped us at the start) from those of us who still had to go up the North Hill again here.

Second time up the North Hill, the siren call of the Port-a-Potty became too much to handle (or was that just the smell, which you could detect from the road?) and I veered off, telling Alex and Michelle I'd see them at the finish. I estimate that this took me about 10 minutes, but there's no way to know for sure since although I was wearing a watch, I didn't actually look at it the entire race. I passed Coach Lisa and MK somewhere around here, as well as some of the Pace 4 Success girls.

Then it was around to the South Hill. I wanted to stop for some water here before exiting the park and hitting the shadeless stretch of Ocean Parkway. When I got to the water table, I got elbowed, hard, in the back by some guy who reached over my head (not an easy feat) and grabbed one of the few cups that was resting on the table away from me. Thanks, dude. And then I realized - there was nothing else on the table. No Gatorade, no water. One woman said that the faster people had drunk everything. Um, so the slow runners get screwed? The volunteers were basically just standing around looking overwhelmed and not getting out the cups. At this point people were just reaching into the Gatorade and water barrels themselves and scooping out what they needed. I felt badly for anyone running this race for time, since I'm sure they either lost valuable minutes here or risked dehydration by skipping it entirely. I took a Gu on my way out of the park.

Out on Ocean Parkway was where I'd anticipated hitting a morale dip. Surprisingly, I still felt great. The water stations continued to suck and I was glad I was carrying my own Gatorade. I saw Alex again and we ran together for a bit until she stopped to stretch. I stopped once to adjust my shoelaces because I felt blisters forming. I saw Jasmine just before mile 10 and she said I looked great. Then I saw the sign that said "Misting Station Ahead." Misting station! All right! The awesome misting stations in Nashville totally saved Kelly and me. We had run through these giant sprinkler setups several times and used them to wet our hats along the way. I was all ready to forgive NYRR for the water station debacles. And then.

I got to the "misting station" only to find that it was ONE GUY. HOLDING A FIRE HOSE. UPRIGHT (since you obviously can't blast a crowd with a fire hose). I even asked him if he was the misting station, and he sheepishly answered that he was. He did soak my hat, though. I laughed myself silly for another couple of miles and then realized I had passed the 12-mile marker and was in the homestretch, baby!

I saw Pamela and Melanie here - Melanie wasn't officially running, but she got us up on the boardwalk and Pamela and I ran in together. Lots of crowd support on the boardwalk, and the Coney Island publicity people did a good job of fixing the accidents-waiting-to-happen that were all the loose boards along here.

I finished in what NYRR tells me was 2:26, but if I subtract my restroom stop I end up with something around 2:16-2:20, I think. Pretty awesome for someone still in marathon recovery, no?

The finish area was chaotic but I got my stuff, made sure Pamela was OK (she had a massive blister), saw Alex, and met up with Jess and Erin and Chris. Jess, Erin and I ran into the freezing-cold Atlantic to ice our legs, and then got some fried food. Good times, all considered. I really had a fabulous run - never really felt tired or hurt or over- or under-hydrated. I would run this again in a heartbeat, but hope that NYRR gets its act together before next year and makes for better water stops and a more organized area at the start and at the finish.

NYC 2010 Qualifying Race #3: Bronx Half Marathon, Feb. 8, 2009

This was a good race, in that I PR'd: 2:08:52! Granted, my only other half marathon was the Nike Women's last October, during which I stopped several times to take photos and soak in the amazing scenery, and this was the Bronx. Not bad, as cityscapes go, but light on the spectators and Tiffany necklaces and tuxedoed firefighters.

But it was heavy on the teammates and camaraderie, which came in very handy. Because this course was hard. It turned around on itself several times, so I was constantly getting passed by faster runners going the other direction. This lent itself to a defeated sort of feeling that I tried to ignore.

It didn't help that my morning got off to a frantic start. I was supposed to meet teammates at Atlantic Terminal in downtown Brooklyn, a 15-minute subway ride from my apartment. As I walked to the station, a train came through that I missed. No problem, I thought, I should have been here earlier but another train will come in 10 minutes or so and I'll only be a couple of minutes late. Ten minutes later, no train. Fifteen, twenty...no train. By this time it was 6:30 and I was supposed to be at Atlantic Terminal. My friends said they would come pick me up. I waited on the street corner for a few minutes. This was truly awesome of Kelly, who was driving, but I felt terrible. But I had to stop freaking out about it or risk ruining my mental space for the day. But I think the damage was done; I'd been standing outside in the chilly morning air for over half an hour, and my muscles didn't really recover from it.

We had a crazy time finding parking once we got to the Bronx, and there was a 10-minute walk to the start from Kelly's car. The weather was a pleasant surprise, in the mid-50s by now and sunny. We'd all struggled with how to dress after weeks of running in snow and subfreezing temperatures, but I was happy with my choice of cropped tights and a t-shirt over a long-sleeve.

By now they were instructing runners to get into their start corrals. We still had to check baggage and hit the Port-a-Potties. We resigned ourselves to starting after the gun. Again, I had to surrender the nerves and surrender to my desperate fear of bathrooms in small, confined spaces (airplane bathrooms being first on the list, with Port-a-Potties a close second).

Finally, Kelly, Pamela and I were off only about 8 minutes after the gun went off -- not a problem since the chips don't start timing you until you cross the mats. We stuck together for about five miles, which was nice. We were hitting 9:45-ish miles and feeling OK. It took me forever to warm up, though -- at least those five miles and maybe even six. I felt really stiff. Watching the Super Runners fly by on the other side of the road did not help.

I took a Gu at mile 6 and felt really good for the next three miles or so, through one turnaround on Mosholu Parkway and onto the Grand Concourse. Here we went down a long downhill, which was discouraging since it was yet another turnaround and that meant a return trip up the hill. There were some cute little kids yelling "Go runners, go runners!" at us along the Concourse, which was nice. Kelly broke off from me here, in pursuit of a PR. I knew I could stick to my present pace but not speed up any more, which was frustrating -- I felt like I should be able to go faster at the end of a race.

I passed the coaches at mile 11, still feeling good, and then hit a major wall when I realized I had to do the Mosholu Parkway turnaround again. My lower back tensed up, then my legs. I took another Gu, hit the last water stop and resolved to pick up the pace. The wind was blowing strong by now and my hat (a Nike baseball cap) was threatening to fly off.

Finally I hit mile 13 -- and all my teammates and Coach Jim, who had already finished, were cheering and yelling my name. This made all the pain of the last couple of miles worth it. I waved -- and my hat blew off for good. Jim yelled at me to finish. So I did, strong at last. And Stephanie saved my hat! I was secretly totally distressed about the loss of the hat, since it was the hat I ran San Francisco in and has a lot of sentimental value as well as just being a great running hat. So major props to Stephanie for the save. I am not looking forward to seeing any photos of me crossing the finish line hatless, as my hair always ends up matted to my head under my hat and usually closely resembles a bad toupee after a long run. There is a reason none of my TNT teammates ever sees my hair except at socials.

So...I had a fun day overall, but I'm kind of beating myself up for not being able to finish the race stronger. I'm worried about my ability to finish a marathon if I'm hitting a wall after 11 miles. I need to take better care of myself before the race and take my time at the start. But it was nice being in a race atmosphere with my teammates, and I'm hoping that this is the spirit that will get me through 26.2 in the end.

UPDATE: Got my photos from this race. The hatless ones are bad, but I don't appear to be grimacing in pain in any of these, and I looked up at the finish line, so that's good.