Embrace The Bridge: United Airlines NYC Half 2019 Recap
Packet Pickup:
I went to pick up my bib/shirt at the United Airlines NYC Half Experience on Friday morning. I took a 9:45 barre3 class (ended at 10:45) and then walked the half mile to the experience and got there shortly after it opened for the day. Getting my bib was a little chaotic because I hadn't pulled up my confirmation form in advance and the lines were not well organized, but it was fine. I decided not to stop for a selfie with my bib, and instead went straight to t-shirt pickup. They had shirts available to try on in case you were unsure about size, but I figured it would be the same size as every other New Balance NYRR shirt that I have, so I skipped that and got my usual size.
After getting your shirt, you get dumped into the New Balance area. I looked around, but didn't find anything I wanted to buy right then. I wanted to try on the Zante Pursuit, but they looked busy, so I skipped it. I may try them on when I go to get my medal engraved (which I'll do either today or tomorrow). I left the New Balance area and didn't really feel like doing much else. I found my name on the name wall and tried to get myself excited about some of the photo-ops, but I just wasn't feeling it, so I didn't stick around for long. Oh, and I looked at goodrs in the JackRabbit area, but they didn't have the ones I wanted, and the other ones definitely didn't look nice enough for what I want.
I was also hoping to grab some Sport Beans, since I was out and wanted to save myself the trip to the running store, but they only had Honey Stinger stuff there (Honey Stinger is now the official nutrition of NYRR races ... which makes little difference to me because they're swapping out one non-kosher gel for another non-kosher gel), so I went over to Paragon Sports (a sporting goods store a few blocks away), which actually seems to have a really good selection of running stuff and may be a good backup running store for me if I can't find what I want at JackRabbit. Plus, I got 20% off with my race bib, which was cool.
Race Morning:
Getting There:
I got up around 5:45am and was ready to leave by 6:30, which means I probably could have slept in a drop, but oh well. Getting to the race was pretty easy, and if I ever got lost, I just followed the rest of the runners. Because the Q train was packed like crazy and it was almost all runners. We're fun. Got there around 7:30-40ish, which was a good time to show up because I didn't have to rush at all, but I also didn't spend too much time standing around doing nothing.
Start Village/Corrals:
Once I got to Prospect Park, the walking began. There was a long walk to security (I passed bag check on the way, but since I didn't check a bag, it wasn't relevant), where I had to take everything out of my pockets and take off my watch (they specified that) before going through a metal detector. After that, it was more walking. They gave out heat sheets to keep people warm, which was nice (I knew this was happening, so I didn't bring my own - otherwise I would have been walking around with a runDisney heat sheet on). And then there was more walking to get to the start village, where they had portapotties and water. And people standing around on muddy grass. Finally, as they were finishing up getting Wave 3 started, I walked all the way back to corral D.
Just to explain the setup: There were 5 waves. I have no idea how wave 1 worked because I was on the subway when they started and they had many corrals. Waves 2-5 each had 4 corrals, A-D. There were 4 corral areas set up, and for each wave, they'd open up the corrals, load that wave, then close the corrals before starting that wave, and after the wave was finished crossing the start area, they'd start loading the next wave into the corrals.
So basically ... if you got there before they were ready to load your wave, you just had to stand around on the side. Which meant that to load into my corral with wave 4, I had to weave through wave 5 people who were waiting around for their wave to load.
I thought it was a complete mess and I can't believe that an organization that runs a marathon with 50K+ people can have such a poorly organized start area.
Anyway ... I ditched my heat sheet on the way to the corrals, and then took off my throwaway sweatshirt a few minutes before we were supposed to start and dumped it in a bin for donation to Goodwill. Then the long walk to the start began ... and eventually I reached the start line and started the race.
The Race:
The First 5K
The plan for the first few miles was to start off slow-ish, slow down even more on the hills, and eventually gradually speed up on the downhill. Well, this is where the changes to the course kinda hit me. Last year, we started in Prospect Park but made our way out of the park and onto the streets right away. This year we started in the park, stayed in the park for the first mile, and when we finally did hit Flatbush Ave, it was the part that goes through the park, so we really didn't hit the "interesting" streets until halfway into mile 3. I got bored and decided I didn't want to try to push myself to the faster pace, at least not at first. I decided to stay at a "medium-ish" effort (planning the pace to be around 10:45-11:15ish) and re-evaluate when we hit Manhattan.
Official Split: 34:05
5K to 10K
This was the big one - the split that would make or break my goal. We started off running down Flatbush Avenue, and it was cool to see what I remembered from last year and what I didn't. There were also some spectators out, which was really nice. Things were going okay until I hit the ramp up to the Manhattan Bridge ... I forgot how bad that uphill is. Since I didn't have a time goal (and if I did, I would have been ahead of it - I was maintaining an 11:05-11:10ish pace that this point and knew I could make up time in Manhattan if I wanted to), I just walked for a while. I took the bridge easy and took some pictures and just enjoyed the experience - so I ended up smashing my primary goal for the race. Yay!
Official Split: 1:10:06 (36:01)
10K to 15K
The 10K mark hit just as we were getting onto the FDR, which was one of my favorite parts of the course last year. After the crapfest that was highways during the WDW marathon, I was afraid I would hate the FDR this year, but I didn't. Surprisingly, looking at Brooklyn/Queens is much more interesting than looking at trees on the side of the road in Florida. Plus, there were spectators. Plus, I may or may not have seen my sister's former boss (I'm still not sure if it was her). I decided to stick with the medium-ish effort and kept my pace around 11-11:10ish (I knew that if I kept that pace I would be good for a PR, and I was trying to save myself to push at the end). Nothing too exciting, but nice, calm, and enjoyable.
Official Split: 1:45:14 (35:08)
15K to 20K
Last year my second least favorite part of the course was 42nd Street. It was all hills and didn't feel that exciting. This year it was a little better, but I was still mostly counting down the miles until I hit Times Square (literally the only time you will ever hear me say that). Once we hit Times Square, I decided to push the intensity up a bit and started to speed up a bit. I'm glad I tried it, but it didn't work so well ... I kinda fizzled out and wasn't feeling great once I hit the park.
Oh, and according to Garmin I ran like an 8:37 mile or something. Garmin does not like 42nd St at all.
Official Split: 2:20:31 (35:17)
The Home Stretch
I wasn't feeling great at the 20K mark, but I knew I only had 1.1K to go, so I kept going. I wanted to push myself, but didn't feel like I could. Honestly, I probably could have pushed and come in a little faster than last year's time, but I'm okay with how this went. I knew I wasn't pushing myself to 100% and I still came within 30 seconds of beating last year's time (when I was pushing myself most of the time) - how crazy is that? The last year has not felt like my training was super successful, but the difference in how I felt during this year's race and last year's race really shows how much of an impact training has had. Wow. This may not have been a PR, but it definitely proves how much I've improved over the last year. Last year I had to push to get below 2:30. This year I did it at mostly a medium effort. I'm incredibly proud of myself.
Official Finish Time: 2:28:11
Post-Race:
Shortly after I got my medal, my friend texted me that she and another friend from our Facebook running group were in the finish area and looking for me. I found them and hung out with them (and a few other friends of theirs) for a little bit, but then had to head home to shower and meet up with my sister.
I spent the afternoon with my sister watching a high school basketball tournament (someone from her community had friends in the tournament, so she came up with them and we hung out and watched the games). Not exactly how I envisioned celebrating the race, but I don't see my sister nearly often enough, so I'm glad I got to spend the afternoon with her.
Goal Check-In:
Goal #1: Conquer and/or enjoy the Manhattan Bridge - Goal smashed! Had a great time on the bridge, even though I had to walk more than expected. It just gave me a chance to reset and enjoy the sights. Attitude really does make a big difference.
Goals #2-#4: Time Goals - Not so much.
What's Next:
Broad Street Run in Philly on May 5th. It's a 10-mile race and supposed to be decently flat. Goal is a new 10 mile PR - 1:56:26 or faster. Considering the fact that my last 10-mile race was a hot mess, this shouldn't be too tough.
Plan has not been started yet. I have access to something called RunCoach with my registration, but after yesterday's race it made my easy pace 11:30, and I think that's a drop too fast for me for easy. I haven't been a huge fan of it so far. So I'm not particularly going to use it.
(watch Coach now make one of my easy paces 11:30 ... it's a good thing I don't actually pay attention to easy paces and just do those runs by feel)
