NYC Half 2012 - March 18, 2012

I entered the lottery for this race on whim of overwhelming nostalgia for my first NYC trip. When I got in again, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe my luck. After talking to the husband, he decided he would rather go camping that week (it coincided with his spring break from grad school), so one my best lady friends was recruited to come along for the ride.

I was a little nervous prior to the trip as we were scheduled to land in NYC on March 17th at noon and the expo closed at 5pm. So many things could go wrong and then no packet and no race for me! But! Thankfully, none of that happened, our flight got in nearly 45 minutes early (!!!!) and I was able to get in and out of the expo like a dream. I walked down the street to Paragon Sports to buy some GU and peruse their shoe selection (and Paragon employees were handing out coupons by the armload at the expo, so I did have an ulterior motive with that 20% off shoes coupon). That store is crazy. I don’t know if it’s ALWAYS that busy but so far my experience is NYC is the larger the store, the busier it is. It took forever to get someone to get me the pair of mizuno’s I wanted (schmancy fun colors!!) and then I was completely misdirected to the compression sleeves, so I just grabbed my gus and headed for the checkout line.

I met back up with my friend who had decided to nap at our hotel. While she showered and woke up, I stretched, laid down, and put my legs up to help keep them fresh. I laid out my materials for the next morning and made sure I had everything exactly where I wanted it so I wasn’t fumbling in the dark while trying to not wake my friend. We met up with some friends at an Italian restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen and got caught up on the past 8 months or so (we hadn’t seen them since their wedding in Homey-ha in June of 2011). I had gnocchi, plenty of bread, and two glasses of red wine and called it a night around 9:00pm. I went to bed calm and confident. I knew I was toeing the line prepared, I had done all the work, I was confident in my training.

I got up at 5:00AM, got dressed, and headed across the street to get a big coffee and something starchy at McDonald’s (I think I got a biscuit?). My hotel was about 1.25 miles from the bag drop and then I’d have to walk across the park to get to my corral. The streets were sublimely quite that morning in the post-St. Patrick’s Day haze. As I walked, I began to see other runner’s carrying their drop bags; we were all slowly converging as we worked our way to the park. I chatted with a Colombian dude for a bit and for a while we were the only people on Seventh Ave. We entered the park and followed the other runner’s toward the UPS trucks where we were to drop off our bags according to bib numbers. Luckily I had come much more prepared this year in terms of clothing. I had a fleece, a Buff neckwarmer, and gloves. I was prepared to dump both the fleece and gloves at the start but made the decision to check the fleece once I realized I’d want it at the finish as I’d be a sweaty mess. Next big race, I’m bringing an old sweatshirt to pitch at the start.

The corrals were set up in 1,000 person increments according to bib number. Each corral had its own bank of about 10 port-a-potties. This was genius. Since I entered the corrals from a weird direction, I started about 10,000 people back from my number. This allowed me to walk by hundreds of port-a-potties with no lines. I think I used no fewer than three as I worked my way forward toward my corral. I arrived in my corral with about 30 minutes until GO. Perfect. So much better than last year when I took a cab to the park, got there an hour and a half early, and nearly froze to death. The walking had warmed up my legs and kept me warm overall.

The corrals were more or less arranged according to projected finish times. It was awesome. I didn’t have to bob and weave too much during the start and was able to just run shoulder to shoulder with a thousand other people at my pace. I knew the park was going to be the most challenging portion of the course but I remembered from last year that none of the hills were really all that bad compared to what I’m accustomed to on any of my regular routes at home. Every time I crossed a mat, I thought about my family tracking me at home, I thought about my husband camping all alone in the Badlands, I thought about who was thinking about me. It’s fairly surreal to race in a mostly unfamiliar place knowing that no one is there in the flesh to cheer for you; it was almost a relief to not have to scan the crowds looking for familiar faces.

My plan was to PR. My plan was to leave everything I had out there somewhere along the Westside Highway. My plan was to run even 8:00s and finish at 1:45, which would mean a 4 minute PR over my last half marathon time in September 2011 on a much harder course.

I slammed a Roctane about 20 minutes before the gun. We sang the anthem (a large group of Italians behind me LOVED this. It was adorable) and were off. My watch was instantly somehow 0.1 miles off from the course markers. This turned out to be a blessing as it made me focus on my overall time and splits like never before. I wanted to run even 8s, so every mile marker I was multiplying 8s and subtracting my time from the official course time (I was about 4 minutes behind), trying to gauge how far off pace I was. At the 5k, I was right on pace, but it was too close for comfort. I turned it up. I charged up every hill and blew past so many people who just did not know how to run hills. I hit the 10k mat around 49 minutes even. Better. The hardest part of the race was nearly behind me. I knew I had that monster downhill coming on 42nd street and I positioned myself the best I could to fly past everyone who had gone out too fast. Once I hit the highway, I told myself to just go, don’t worry about feeling good when you finish, leave everything you have out there. I hit the 15k at 1:13. Getting better. The wind was picking up on the highway and I knew once I got near Battery City, we would take a turn and be out of the wind. I would set my sights on some chick that looked faster than me and then catch her. At one point, right before the WTC, I heard someone say “Wow, she is FAST,” I don’t know if that was about me, but I definitely felt like it was. I focused on a skinny blonde girl with a braided pony tail that reminded me of Devon Crosby-Helms (fastfoodiecooks.com) I chased her down and passed her right before we ducked into the Battery Park Tunnel. The tunnel was awesome. My watch lost its signal and I ran scared that I was slowing down. I hit the 20k in 1:36 and thought to myself “Holy shit you’re about to do this in less than 1:43!” We rounded the corners onto Old Slip and then Water Street. The finish line was blaring Rihanna “We Found Love” and I hammered it in. 1:41:06.

I finished high on endorphins and caffeine (thanks Roctane Gu!), got my drop bag and my space blanket and called my family as I worked my way out of the finishers chute. I’ve never ran like before. I’ve never ran in complete trust that my legs and lungs will carry me there and respond with the speed my brain is commanding of them. The 2012 NYC Half was a perfect race for me; there is a part of me that never wants to beat the PR because that race was so spectacular.

Official splits are:
5k: 24:34/ 7:54 pace
10k: 48:58/ 7:53 pace
15k: 1:12:54/ 7:49 pace
20k: 1:36:08/ 7:44 pace
Finish: 1:41:06/ 7:44 pace