Well, I did it. I broke 89 minutes. In fact, I went completely through 88 minutes, winding up almost on the other side of 87 minutes. 1:27:10.
The morning of I had no idea this would be the day. In fact, the night before I got no sleep at all. Laid awake with my eyes shut the whole night opening them each hour to see what time it was. Same story as every other night before a race, but this time I didn’t get the 2 or 3 hours of sleep I’m sometimes lucky enough to manage.
It wasn’t nerves keeping me awake as much as it was excitement. At 3am I sort of wished I could just be at the start at that moment and get the race over with. At 4:45am I began getting ready to go to Mark with whom I traveled with for the previous two halves in the grand prix series.
When we arrived, parking was absolutely horrendous. The situation in the Bronx is always the worst. Seeing “no parking on Sunday” signs taped to trees all along the empty Goulden ave just added insult to injury. After circling around we found a municipal parking lot at 6:40am about a mile away.
After parking on the top-level, we get to the bottom, punch in the parking spot # and then realize the machine doesn’t take dollar bills. I asked the woman sitting in the attendant booth who was smoking cigarettes and talking the phone if she can make change for the machine. She told me to go to the store across the street. Bah! Right. I noticed the machine took cards so Mark and I ran back up to where the car was parked to get a credit card. No luck! Machine didn’t work. Then some guy who appeared to be maintenance or a janitor asked if we were parked upstairs, and upon confirming, he told us not to worry and that we didn’t need to pay on Sunday. I wondered to myself if the cigarette smoking woman yapping on the phone knew about that.
As we lightly ran to the start, we had 15 minutes. Plenty of time still. I purposely ran and bounced hard a bit to figure out if I was empty or if I should hit the toilets once more before lining up. Sure enough, a bathroom was in order. I began wondering what the port-a-john situation would be like being so close to the starting time. And then I saw a McDonald’s and told Mark my plans and that I’d meet him at the start. It only took about 7 minutes for someone behind the counter to slowly move and unlock the bathroom door for me. But, the wait was worth it. I got a semi clean toilet that flushes along with a sink and running water. The smell was only as bad as the food that they serve. I did my thing and felt much lighter running to the start thinking this was a proper warm up for the race.
When I arrived near the start the port-a-john lines were out of control. They seem to get worse and worse at every race, and I’m under the impression that NYRR is bringing less of these things out nowadays. I remember a time where you had port-a-johns in different sections and if the lines were too long you would go check the lines out at the “other port-a-johns”. Now, when you find where the port-a-johns are, those are them and that’s all there is.
I walked into my corral with still 4 minutes to go. I found Mark and greeted him, in which he replied, “oh good, you made it”. I assessed the weather felt it was a little warm and definitely humid, but nothing like Queens. I was thinking sub-90 minutes was possible, but not necessarily a PR. I ate about 4 glucose tablets and a gel. I had two more tucked in my short which I planned to take around mile 4.5 and 9 to evenly space things out.
The announcer begins and doesn’t bother with the directions on the course. It was somewhat refreshing to hear him admit it was pointless and said to basically just follow the guy in front of you. And honestly, I never thought these directions were of much use at other races either. The horn goes off, we start, and I take things pretty easy. Or at least they feel easy. I immediately find a rhythm that feels right. Not too hard and very comfortable. I pull up alongside Mark but my pace takes me past him.
Most of the race from this point is a blur.
Starting out, the road eventually became nicely paved. We hit a somewhat steep incline on a turn. Nothing too bad, in fact getting over it loosens things up. No sooner do we reach the top, a block later, it descends down the other side and we make a turn.
Mile 1: 6:32
The pace is faster than I thought. I focus on how I feel and just maintain effort that feels right. I decidedly slow it down a bit.
Mile 2: 6:36
Everything is still good. The tree-lined street is actually kind of nice and the majority of it has a slight decline keeping things fast. Occasionally there are parts that climb and there may have been a hill here or there. I just go with it because it continues to feel right.
We come to Mosholu Parkway which has a long decline. We pass by, I see the mile 12 marker on the other side of the parkway and being before the 3rd mile marker it feels a long way off.
Mile 3 comes at the end of the decline where we turn around and run up the other side. I see my average pace is in the low 6:30s. I’m somewhat intimidated by it since its much faster than my 6:48 PR pace. Also, I’m reminded of blowing up at the Brooklyn half as a result of pushing a similar pace too early. I decide though things still feel right.
Mile 3: 6:30
I focus on maintaining even effort and slow it down just a bit to climb the hill we just ran down. From there, we basically run the course back to the start. All the declines are now inclines, but they feel good the whole way. It’s just enough of an incline that I can comfortably lean into it.
before the grand concourse
Mile 4: 6:42
Mile 5: 6:43
Mile 6: 6:39
After mile 6 I realize I’m half way done. I notice the time is under 40 minutes and I think to myself pulling off a sub-40 10K is definitely doable. I make a mental note to target one at some point in the near future.
At this point we go on to the Grand Concourse for an out and back. It’s a bit rolling in the beginning, yet it reminds me of Ocean Parkway a bit. I’m very pleased with how far I’ve come in the race at this point and how good things feel. I know I’m way ahead of my PR. I begin to wonder how long I’ll be able to keep this. I easily find a groove and gradually push harder
Mile 7: 6:41
Mile 8 seems to come very quickly and its right before a steep dip followed by a steep climb. I see people struggle to climb out, but I find it easy knowing the climb will be short.
Mile 8: 6:36
The turn around point is right before mile 9. I’m running down the Grand Concourse fast and easily the way I wanted to do Ocean Parkway at the Brooklyn half. There’s a nice breeze that occasionally hits us throughout this whole part of the course.
Mile 9: 6:39
The turn around before mile 9 is a sharp 180 degree turn around a little orange cone. Not a turn where we run wide around a divider of some sort. This sort of turn is like a complete dead stop and then you start again.
At the turn around everything almost falls a part. Things all of a sudden feel difficult. It’s feels like everything came to a screeching halt and I can’t get it going again.
I start to do the math in my head trying to calculate the time I have left to complete the last four miles. What kind of time would I have if I maintained current pace and what kind of time if I fell into a slow easy pace? I figure if I maintain pace I do 1:26 something and then quickly dismiss thinking I’m making some arithmetic error. Sub 90 if I blow up and start doing 8 minute miles.
Four miles now seems long, while for the majority of the race, every mile just clicked off. I begin to think this is where my race might turn to disaster. I questioned whether or not I’d be able to keep it for the entire race and suspected I might blow up at some point. That point might be now.
I do my best to keep going and try find the groove I had throughout the race. There’s a guy who’s been running somewhere in my vicinity for the whole time and has been breathing loud and heavy. I feel like he’s right next to me. I have headphones on, but I still hear his loud breathing and it’s screwing up my rhythm. I’m finding my breathing pattern is matching is subconsciously like a metronome and it’s all wrong for me. It’s making the effort harder. There’s no way for me to get away from it.
Eventually, before I hit mile 10, I go down that same steep drop and back up in the opposite direction as before and realize things are feeling a bit better.
Mile 10: 6:47
I decide to play it cautious as I run towards the end of the Grand Concourse. I focus on trying feel good rather than pushing pace. I know I’m way ahead of a big PR and I don’t want to risk losing it all. It doesn’t count if I run a great half marathon to mile 10 and then blow up.
Almost done
Mile 11: 6:48
On to mile 12 we go down the decline on Mosholu Parkway again. The heavy breather passes me and I shout some encouragement “go, go, go!”. Glad to see him go! I guess he took it as clearance to do whatever he likes because he practically steps on my feet as he cuts right in front of me. “go, go, go” becomes “whoa, whoa, whoa – careful”, and I had to touch him a few times so he would know how close he was.
We wrap around the mile 3 marker again, and up the same incline and I see the mile 12 marker for the second time. I start to let it out knowing I have a mile to go and I got this in the bag.
Mile 12: 6:43
On to mile 13, as we turn off the parkway, its flat and you could see mile 13 way off in the distance. I lock in and just maintain the fastest pace I could keep for the rest of the mile.
Official time 1:27:10
Mile 13: 6:35
Mile 13.1: 0:35 (5:56 min/mi)
I check my watch and it says 1:27. I think wow, I hit my goal. Went right passed 1:28 all the way to 1:27. Then I fidget with the garmin to find out how far under 1:28 my time was. 1:27:13? I question if everything is correct.
Official results come out and its 1:27:10. At the beginning of this year, I wasn’t sure if I would go under 1:28 anytime soon, but I see I’m very close doing a sub 1:27.
This was a breakthrough race for me. I’m now confident I’m capable of eventually doing a sub 3 hour marathon one day. The race predictor calculators put me under a 3:02 marathon. I definitely can’t do a 3:02 marathon now, but what it does mean is that with the right training, it’s not beyond my limits. I’m sure I can squeeze a little bit more and then from there and make it 2:59:59.
The next and last half of the series is the Staten Island half. I grew up there and its one hell of a trip from where I live now. Ironically, there’s a half marathon right down the road on the same exact day. I’m having trouble justifying going out to Staten Island October 9th when I can walk to the Westchester half marathon from my house. The course is along the Bronx River Parkway and it’s the one where I ran my first marathon. In fact, I occasionally train on it during bicycle sundays.
It looks like Staten Island will remain the forgotten borough for me this year.
