Manhattan Half Marathon

Today I completed my first official half marathon. There's a bit of a story about how that's the case - here it is. I was planning on running the Brooklyn Half marathon last year in May. Unfortunately a slight knee injury kept me out of that one. Then, on July 27th, 2008 I was scheduled to run the Nike New York half - this race is great, starting in Central Park and ending, via Times Square, at Battery Park. Since Dylan was born 15 minutes before the start, I didn't get the chance to run that one either. So I was really looking forward to completing this race.

The train was delayed, leaving me at the Road Runner's office to pick up my number spot on 7:30. The start was at 65th street meaning that #582 (24th overall finisher - and a great guy. Very modest and interesting - go #582!) and I ran from NYRR to the start - leaving off our stuff at the baggage drop 5 minutes before the start. I wanted to put on my shades and double tie my shoes, so after jumping in the corral (a slow one) I bent over to get it done. No sooner had I gone over, it seemed, but the guy behind me (the sighted member of a blind running team) said, 'we're moving' either to me or to his ward. So I very quickly tied and we were off - to move about 10 feet only to stop again. So I got the shades on and the shoes tied.

Distance: 13.1 Miles, 21.1 Kilometers
Date/Time: Jan. 25, 2009, 8:00 am
Location: Central Park, NYC
Weather: 14 deg., 52% humidity, wind 6 mph

Results:

Last Name	First Name	Bib	OverallPlace	GenderPlace	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile
PARKS	JOSHUA	1517	1521	1224	251	01:48:44	08:18

Data:

Mile	Time	Ave. Heart Rt.	Mile	Time	Ave. Heart Rt.	Mile	Time	Ave. Heart Rt.
1	08:21	158	7	08:16	165	13	08:21	172
2	08:18	163	8	08:16	167	0.1	00:51	175
3	07:51	163	9	07:57	170
4	08:28	165	10	08:44	169
5	08:22	166	11	08:35	170
6	07:55	163	12	08:23	167
							Time	Ave. Heart Rt.
							01:48.44	163

Thoughts:

This race was a test of both endurance (duh!) and patience since I ran it entirely at around 88% of my peak rate (save the last mile, where I 'kicked' a pathetic showing as you'll see). The first miles I really did a good job of moving without burning up on cardio. By the second loop my pace was slowing a bit - although I was amazingly consistent throughout. The miles are presented so that the times/heart rates can be compared easily.

My goal was to finish in less than 2 hours - which I did. However I left the race disappointed simply because of the way I felt on miles 9 through the end. The hills of Central Park are very unforgiving and although I did a great job of running them on the first go, I didn't feel as though I ran them well on the second. I was very, very grateful that I didn't run my usual crazy fast splits, as this would have left me unable to finish.

All told though this race was a huge success. I ran more or less the race I wanted (I had planned to run between 150 and 160/165 throughout - this broke down on the second lap but partly because I felt good and didn't feel it necessary to keep it down for the second lap). That always feels good. I didn't know how consistently I'd run and felt as though my legs were stiff as boards on the last three miles. I had to 'gut through' a couple of ones at the end - something that I'm not used to. But I've posted a starting point for longer runs.

Conclusion:

I really need to run more frequently both to build the base but also to enable faster miles. This is simply the way it is. I am planning on working with Steph to figure out how I can carve out some time to make it happen. I look to decrease my times here and hope that I can improve on this time significantly by the end of the year. I can't imagine doing the marathon at this pace - but it's nice to feel like I'm building a base from this place.