Race Report: Manhattan Half Marathon

First of all thank you for all the advice and well wishes over these past few months.  Ian’s focus on rest and recovery has been instrumental in my ability to stay healthy and continue my improvement.

My morning routine went off without a hitch.  I awoke at 6am, scooted over to the espresso machine to make my morning goodness … gets me my caffeine fix and accelerates the necessary pre-race irrigation.  I lounged around until about 7am and then started stretching.  My legs were ache free and rested.  Good sign!  After obsessing over my gear most of yesterday, I made a last minute adjustment.  No warm up pants (wasn’t cold enough) and instead of just lightweight gloves, I added my ratty $5 street-bought thinsulate gloves too.  I decided against my Brooks mittens because trying to reach for water cups and pulling GU pinned to my shorts  with mittens would be too much effort.  I figured if my hands were too warm, I could just toss the old gloves while running.  Since this is a New Year and new me, I ditched my normal race playlist (fast tempo pop and hip-hop).  I decided to listen to my everyday training music.  This morning’s soundtrack:

I have 4 discs of Elmo Hope so I was in fine form on the music front.

I made it out the door at 7:35am for the jog to the West Side of Central Park.  The starting line was near the legendary Tavern on the Green (now closed … sadness).  I made it just in time as the corrals started surging forward to the start.  At this point, I was pretty pleased with myself as I remembered to bring everything I intended, successfully worked thru my routine and made it to the start healthy and on time.  As we inched toward the start, I noticed a lump by my forearm.  I reached under my shirt and pulled out a dark blue dress sock.  Bizarre? Random?  Static cling folks.  Static cling.  I tucked the little booger in my shorts and laughed.

Now, I’m not a race veteran by any stretch of the imagination (10 races), but I cannot envision weather conditions more perfect for a distance race: 38*, overcast skies and no wind.  Ideal!  Once the gun went off I kind of went inside myself … totally chill.  My music was in my head and I hit rhythm immediately, which means the warm up jog did the trick.  Yes.  I’d been concerned about starting sluggish and panicking, but that never happened.  Cat Hill awaited us at about ¾ of the first mile.  I put my head down and concentrated on keeping my rhythm.  At the peak I noticed my breathing had not changed at all … folks, we were off to the perfect start.  At the first mile marker I looked at my watch (for the only time until mile 12.5) and saw a somewhat surprising result: 8:26.  I thought that was a little quick.  In my mind I was targeting 8:45 to ensure a big negative split.  I also thought with the huge crowd, it would be impossible to get off to a fast start.  At this point, I had a decision to make.  Slow up or trust the training/taper.  I was feeling great so I went with the latter and for the next 11.5 miles ran on feel and not time.

I’m not going thru a mile-by-mile summary … I don’t have splits and that would be boring anyway.  Just a few highlights / thoughts:

-   I didn’t grab water at every station.  I did so intermittently during the first 6 miles and always right after I GU’d (mile 5 and mile 9).  Gatorade was available, but I never used it.  Only for my last LR did I experiment with a sports drink in my water bottle.  That run wasn’t terrific and I felt sluggish.  What I did notice is that whenever I grabbed water it completely thru off my stride and breathing.  It took another 800m each time to get readjusted.  That was annoying.  Not sure what to do about it as I don’t want to bring a handheld to a race.

-   I handled the hills well.  Since I developed that nagging groin/leg injury in November, I stopped hill repeats.  However, on my LRs I would run the race course, so I’d get my fill of the hills.  My head down / avoid looking at the peak strategy seemed to work … at least psychologically.

-   I never bonked and only slightly tired around the 4-mile mark.  The likely explanation is I’d worked through Cat Hill at mile 1 and Harlem Hill at mile 3.5.  Still, except for the adjustment after water stations, I ran strong and consistent.  Chest out, etc.

Like I said, I never looked at my watch during the race but the running clocks were at every mile marker.  Since it took me 10 minutes to cross the starting line, I had a general idea of my pace.  I didn’t start to really care until mile 10.  If memory serves, I was somewhere around 1:25.  I was feeling great.  I’d just finished up Harlem Hill for the second time and had nothing but downhill for the next 2.5 miles.  I think I’ve been fairly consistent in stating that I didn’t have a goal time for this race.  However, once I saw I had a shot sub-1:50 something inside clicked.  I didn’t blast off, but I started digging deep to keep it going.  While there is nothing magical about sub-1:50, it is closer to my 2010 goal of 1:40 in an HM at some point this year.  If I could bang a sub-1:50 on pretty tough terrain in my first race in 5 months, with a lot more speed work in front of me this year, 1:40 somewhere is possible.

Once I hit 12.5 miles, I looked at my watch.  1:45.  I was too close not to grind it out.  While I was not in all out sprint mode (the kick just wasn’t there), I was definitely in sub-8:00 min/mile mode.  Central Park throws hills at the most inopportune times … I counted 3 minor hills from 12.5 to the finish.  Bleh.  Didn’t care.  Kept pushing.

The result: official time: 1:48:33 … 8:17 pace.  Based on mile 1 split 8:26, I was pretty consistent throughout but did negative split at some point on the back 6 miles.  I am obviously happy with the result.  I trained hard and ran smart.  However, there was no elation.  No jumping up and down.  I know I can drop that time a lot more.  CP is a tough course and I am not in racing mode yet.

You all know I am fond of numbers, so let’s put today in context vs. my history.  Below is a table of races of 5 miles, 10K and HMs.  As the Prophet Ice Cube once said, “today was a good day!”

Basically, I not only PR’d my debut HM by 25 minutes, but my pace was faster than my 10K and 5 mile PRs.  I feel pretty good about that.  While I have a long way to go before I can consider myself a good runner, today I accomplished what I set out to do – set a benchmark from which I can improve upon for the rest of the year.  By spicing in a lot more speed work with CPTC, I have a shot at 3:30 instead of Death.