it's been a while

what up. looks as been it's been about a month since i last updated. god i'm terrible at this. 

yesterday i ran the brooklyn half marathon, which is a part of new york road runner's five borough marathon series. it was a good race, but probably not my favorite half ever. 

i picked up my bib on wednesday, which was awesome since they are usually only open on thursday and friday night's for pick up. it was easy peasy per usual. my main complaint would be the t-shirts. they are really cool, nice quality t-shirts. however, they are enormous. a men's small is still way too big for me. i can definitely sleep in it, but i'd kind of like to run it in, since it is a tech tee and all. had the same problem with the NYC half, and now that shirt is in the "random ass clothes" basket under my bed. 

the race was saturday morning, which i really prefer to a sunday morning race, since you don't have the the whole weekend preparing or stressing about it. i got out of work on the early side on friday evening, and laid out my stuff for the next day. 

essentials include: asics core shimmel (best running shir ever and it's like 25 bucks), new mizuno elixirs with new laces of course, lemon lime sports beans and pink lemonade honey singers, nike spandex shorts (BEST RUNNING SHORTS EVER!), features socks and LOTS o'  body glide. these are pretty much my go-to running products. i also used a fuel belt to carry my iPhone so i can listen to spottily. very important. 

the race started early (7AM), so i was up at 4:45 getting ready to go. i didn't have my usual bagel with PBJ but the most incredible toast instead that i had frozen from a farm back home. it was so filling i couldn't even eat all 4 pieces. 

                            

or maybe i'm a fat kid, because looking back on it, that is a lot of toast. anyway, i had my pre race eats while drinking coffee and reading blogs (my favorite way to prepare). i headed to pick up the 2 train at about 5:45. when i got to the train, i was greeting with an ABSOLUTELY PACKED train. but, it was completely filled with runners. i was weirdly obsessed with the experience. it felt so cool to know that everyone you were with shared an interest of yours. i almost said "twinsies" to a middle aged man who had the same watch as me..but i thought that might be taking it too far. as we got off the subway, it was so crowded we could barely get out of the station. but, i didn't mind at all. i still thought the fact that i was sharing the subway with 16,000 other runners was super amusing. probably the only time in my life i won't mind a crowded subway.

 

after shuffling off the subway, i was greeted by a gorgeous sunny morning at the brooklyn museum, which is wear the race started. i hit up the port potties (lines were short), walked around a bit and then headed to my corral. the race started on eastern parkway in the prospect heights section of BK, and it was gorgeous. given the beauty of the start, i had high hopes for the rest of the course. 

we started right on time, and i crossed the start at about 7:11. i wasn't putting any pressure on myself for this race, since i hadn't trained much at all. i was hoping to sub 2, but honestly i didn't really care. it was really humid from the beginning, and i felt dehydrated at mile 1, so i decided very early i just wanted to stay hydrated and not get heat exhaustion. mile 1 clocked in at about 9:53. 

miles 1-7 were lovely. we cruised down some shaded pretty streets of brooklyn and then headed into prospect park. i was maintaining about a 9:05 pace, which felt comfortable and fine. prospect park was lovely, not too hilly. it was starting to get hot though. i stopped at pretty much every water stop and had mostly water, and grabbed gatorade about twice.  while i was running the park, i was looking forward to getting to mile 7, where i knew we were gonna leave the park and head through parts of brooklyn that i'd never seen. i was excited. 

however, we were quickly corralled into a entrance onto a highway. ocean parkway, to be exact. this is when things got hairy. 

i was getting excited at this point (because i didn't know what was ahead of me). i couldn't wait to get to coney island! however, my excitement was premature. we ended up running on the highway from mile 7-mile 12.5. it SUCKED. i was SO bored. i had picked up my pace and was running around 8:30's at this point, but the sun was coming out, there was no shade, and zero scenery. i know NYRR works really had at creating great race routes, but this was pretty bad. i couldn't wait for the race to be over. i had hoped they would route  us through brooklyn neighborhoods, instead of the highway..but they did not. oh well. i have to say though, the course was REALLY flat and had i trained more, i think i could have run it a lot faster. 

by mile 12, i was just so ready for the race to be over. it wasn't that i was really hurting, but i just had no enthusiasm or energy any more, and just felt like stopping. the only thing encouraging me was knowing that coney island was at the end! i knew the race ended on the boardwalk, so i pushed through and we finally were funneled onto the boardwalk for the last 400 meters. normally i have enough in me to surge at the end, but that was not happening. i pushed as much as i could, and finally crossed the finish. i immediately got the chills and knew that if i didn't hydrate ASAP i was gonna get really sick. i grabbed a big cub of gatorade and 2 cups of water and went searching for t.  i didn't see t in the spectator area, but i knew he was there somewhere. after about 30 minutes of searching for each other (phones weren't working and i was basically trapped in a corral), we finally met on the boardwalk. i downed another bottle of gatorade while we enjoyed the view. 

coney island is really beautiful when it's not crowded! we hung for a while on the boardwalk and then headed for the car. of course, i had to make sure tim took a picture of me. 

i was pumped we got a medal too! overall, not my favorite or best race ever, but i was happy with it and glad i just got out there. bottom line, is i love running, and i'm thankful that i live in a city where i could pretty much run a race every weekend if i wanted. 

i finished in 1:57:51. now time to start training for the old port half marathon in maine, my favorite state ever. xoxo