NYC Half 2013

Thirteen point one miles.  This was my first half marathon since doing the same race last year.  I knew with the limited amount of training I'd done it wouldn't my fastest time, but this race is always a lot of fun, is a good way to see the city, and also to how see how the fitness is coming along as spring approaches.

The night before, I made sure I got to bed early.  As I'm definitely not a 'morning person', I was worried I was going to oversleep the 5.30 am alarm clock, and kept on waking up to check the time.  I also had a dream about being somewhere just before a triathlon was about to start, only to realise I'd left my wetsuit and goggles behind.  I'd have to ask a psychoanalyst what this means, but I'm pretty sure it was related to the race!

I met my Achilles guides, Greg and Reshma, at baggage check in Central Park at the crack of dawn.  I had a good team assembled around me.  I do a lot of regular workouts with Reshma, and did a few races with her last year.  Greg is probably one of the fittest volunteers at Achilles.  He does ironmans, and crazy things like cycling from NYC out to the other end of Long Island on a one-speed bike.  He's also completely low key about all his athletic accomplishments.  This was my first race with him, but I didn't have too many concerns that he'd be able to keep up :)

The one thing I will probably remember about this race is that it was COLD!  It was only just above freezing as we waited about 45 minutes for the race to start in Central Park.  There was light snow on the grass from the night before, and everyone around us was shivering in their running tops, willing time to move on, and get the race started.  Greg had bought us foil capes to wrap around us, a stroke of genius which a lot of the other 15,000 people in the starting corrals probably wished they'd thought of too.

Finished!

Finally we were underway.   I just tried to go for a nice steady pace, up and down the hills of Central Park; it was a good feeling to finally start warming up and get sweat going after waiting around in the cold.   I started to get a kind of strange spasm every couple of minutes or so from my left hip which would affect my gait a little, but it wasn't too painful, and otherwise I felt good.

After seeing my friends Melissa and Rodrigo volunteering on the west side of the park, it was on to my favourite part of the run - out of the park, and down 7th Avenue towards Times Square.   The crowd support here is good, it's an impressive view of Times Square along an avenue which is blocked with cars at most other times, and there are a few live bands along the way.

My longest training runs for this event had been 8 and 10 milers, so I started feeling a little sore around this mark, as we turned on to 42nd street, and then onto the West Side Highway, to take us all the way down to battery park.  But I generally felt in good shape, so the three of us were able to cruise along at a steady and comfortable pace.

Reshma, Greg, and Lamar

After hitting the bottom of Manhattan, and going through the Brooklyn Tunnel, we were were only 800 metres from the finish line.  I had a little extra juice in the tank so we sped up a little to finish strongly over the finish line.  Our final time was 2 hrs 23 minutes, which I was happy with, for a hilly course early in the racing season.   After a couple of days of recovery, it will be time to hit the pool and spend some time on my bike to prepare for my next challenges of the year, my ride across England, and a half ironman in August.