Cowboy Hazel

I ran a 1:22:57 half marathon out in Brooklyn this morning. That 6:19/mile overall pace was good enough for 75th out of 7,006. It was also a new personal best and a NYCM qualifier. The race was far from smooth sailing though.

I really, really didn't want to wake up this morning. Our alarms went off at 4:50 and Helen nearly had to drag me out the door to get me on the subway. My legs felt like crap and I spent much of the ride over whining about how bad of a race I would be running. Plus, I discovered on the way that I had forgotten my Garmin at home. I'm the world's worst pacer even with it, so the idea of running a race "naked" scared the hell out of me.

Despite leaving ridiculously early, we didn't have a lot of extra time when we got to Brooklyn. Luckily, I'd somehow been invited to the V.I.P. tent, so we were at least able to grab some quick breakfast there and didn't have to deal with any of the waiting for the bathroom/baggage line hassles.

I was near the front of the first corral, trying to be as close to gun time as possible to help make math at the mile signs easier. We were off and I just tried to run what I thought was a 6:30 pace. Surprisingly, I was right on, hitting 6:31 the first mile, 13:00 the second, and 19:28 the third (I remember them specifically because I was so surprised at my consistency.) The fourth mile was another 6:30 and left me really struggling. I still hadn't made up my mind completely whether I'd be racing this or merely running it. And, at that point, I threw in the towel and decided to just jog it out. If it was taking me this much effort to maintain 6:30's (slower than the real goal pace), there was no point in making it hurt just to be disappointed.

So, I let up. I relaxed my shoulders and imagined I was slowing down. We were lapping tons of slower runners by this point so it was tough to gauge pace, plus I didn't have my watch which I always rely on. When I hit mile 5 and found that I'd run yet another almost exact 6:30, I was very surprised, to say the least. Still, I didn't try to pick up the pace, just kept it relaxed. Miles 6 and 7 were right at 6:30 pace too and I was feeling way better than I had at the start. I started reevaluating...

As we left the park and began our trip down Ocean Parkway, I decided that I might as well give it shot. I'm halfway through this thing with an okay pace and am feeling pretty good. The weather's okay, let's do this. And so I picked up the pace. At the same time, others around me were fading and it made it seem like I was flying. I'd pick targets off in the distance and catch them, only to spot another and continue the process. It was unreal. I was catching these guys that looked like legitimate runners and passing them like it was nothing.

But it wasn't nothing. I started to hurt around mile 9 and the pain only escalated from there. By mile 11, I was getting dizzy and feeling the start of that same chest cramp again. Still, I was keeping my breathing controlled and trying to look as casual as possible as I kept marching past the other runners. At mile 12 I did the math and realized that if I did sub-6 the last mile, I'd break 1:23. So, I started pushing as hard as I possibly could. There was a guy right in front of me that I was trying to pass, but he wasn't going to make it easy. We dueled down the boardwalk but I never did catch him. I did, however, see that the third digit was still a 2 when I ran under the finish line. Sweet. After we left the park, I didn't get passed a single time and I think I probably picked off close to a hundred runners. There's something to this whole running smart thing...

I didn't have to wait long for Helen. She ran a 1:29:45, beating me in age graded percent yet again. We hung out in the V.I.P. tent for a while eating great food, then took some beers over to the beach and fell asleep on the sand.