I did it!! NYC 1/2 Marathon!!

Well, I did it (on sunday!) I got up at 4:30am, braved the thunder, lightening and rain. Well, it was all gone by the time the gun went off, but I managed to stay dry beforehand underneath a very sleek black garbage bag! I started and finished the NYC 1/2 marathon this past sunday- humidity and all. A day that had called for near 90 degree and sunny weather turned out to be mid-70s and overcast. Much better than expected.

I was a bit nervous going into the race, not really sure about how I would do. Before Sunday, my longest run this season was 10 miles....3.1 shy of sunday's race. Well, by the end I didn't have anything to be worried about.

I started off cautious, thinking that I would approach the race as another training run-easy, and not doing anything fancy. For the first three miles I was on pace, holding steady. During mile 4, I somehow dropped 25 seconds off my mile pace!! A whole lot of worry went through me. Could I keep this pace for the next 10 miles? And on top of running 25 second faster, I was on the hillest part of the course. How could that be?! Well, I listened to my body, it was feeling good, didn't feel as if I was putting in tooo much effort. So i went with it. Figured, let's see what I can do. The worst thing that could happen was that my body hated me before I crossed the finish line.

So I ran the first 3 miles very conservatively through Central Park. Then the next 4 miles through Central Park I was testing myself, but still feeling good. I exited the Park on 7th Avenue and headed down to Times Square. The crowds were good, and I enjoyed the wet, cold spounges at Mile 8. As I cruised down 7th Ave through Times Square I was greeted to a huge stage and people singing Karoke to "It's raining men" (too bad it wasn't literal). It was hillarious!! At 42nd street, we took a right and ran to the west side highway, to be greeted by another stage- this time it was some sort of latin dance. Down the west side highway for the last 3.5 miles. Still feeling good, but this is somewhere where I never enjoyed my runs-the west side highway. The crowds were starting to pick up again, and I just kept telling myself to hold steady, and wondering if I could keep this pace up.

The last 2 miles I was starting to feel the effects of my pacing, but figured, what the heck, it's only 2 miles. So I held steady until mile 12. The last mile i picked up the pace a bit more, and the last 800meters just gave it everything I had. But boy, i was glad to be done. 2 hours, 6 minutes and 28 seconds after I had started. And about 3 minutes faster than my last 1/2 marathon.

The race was awesome! I had a great time. The crowds were wonderful, especially the 3 cheering Team in Training cheering sections and the other random TNTers spread over the course. They were wonderful teammates cheering us all through our 1/2 marathon!

Here's a couple pictures from the race: