New York Marathon - Race Report

Well, I survived the New York Marathon on Sunday!

I finished in 5:09:08, which is about 2 minutes slower than my PR (setlast year at NYC) and I'm completely astonished that I was able to pull off that time since I started struggling at mile 15 and was actually thinking about quitting at mile 17. The worst part is that there wasn't any real reason for the glum attitude -- it was all just my own negative thoughts working against me.

My plan for the race was to stick like glue to the 5 hour pacer and try to hang with him all the way to the end. On a perfect day, I thought I'd be able to do it. But it would have to be a perfect day.

My training has been spotty at best since the 25 mile hike I did in late September and when I did my longest run in preparation for NewYork (only 18 miles instead of the scheduled 20) I felt horrible. Really horrible. My legs hurt until Wednesday and typically they don't hurt at all after my long runs. At that point, I knew that New York was probably going to be really hard but I still hoped for a miracle.

I started out with the pace guy and struggled to stay with him in the early miles because I really wanted to be running faster than the pace (11:26). I kept having to slow down to stick with him and it was a frustrating battle but one that I thought would be worth it in the long run. By mile 13 we were running 1 minute ahead of pace for a 5 hour finish. He told us that that was intentional because we'd lose 15-20 seconds on the bridge into Queens just past 13 miles and we'd lose the rest of the lead on the Queensboro bridge between 15 and 16. Somewhere along that stretch I lost touch with the pack. And the11:26 pace that had seemed too easy now seemed pretty hard.

On the bridge, it was dark and it's uphill and many, many people began to walk. I joined them. For some reason during this stretch they have mile markers at every 10th of a mile and at one point I started to run and didn't even make it to the next 10th marker. Now that was demoralizing! I thought to myself -- how can I possibly go more than 10 more miles when I can't even run a tenth of a mile at time? UGH!

Turning off the bridge onto 1st Avenue in Manhattan is a pretty exciting part of the race because there are big, rowdy crowds there. This is just past mile 16 and there is a sign there that says "If the definition of easier is less than 10 miles to go.......welcome to Easier!" Unfortunately for me, it didn't feel easier.

For the next several miles up 1st avenue I was really in a very bad place. I was walking a lot, felt like I had nothing in the tank despite following my proven fuel plan, and was just completely miserable and grumpy. Even the crowds, who were awesome, weren't doing much to help me. I started trying to figure out if I could drop out and walk back to the hotel from where I was. Then I started thinking that I could just walk the rest of the way. I calculated I could walk the whole rest of the way and still finish under 6 hours. Not a great time, by any stretch, but it was achievable.

Finally, we made it into the Bronx and the people there were just fantastic. They were loud, and fun, and dancing and really gave me a nice boost. They got me running a little bit more but I still felt rotten. Entering Manhattan again is also a really nice push because even though you still have about 6 miles to go, at this point you are heading towards the finish line and that makes it seem a little better.

I couldn't maintain any consistant running so I was trying to walk as fast as I could and run as much as I could. This was mostly on downhill sections, when somebody called my name (thank goodness this happened a lot), and when I spotted a photographer. I was also aided many times by this gang of runners dressed as Darth Vader, Yoda, Chewbacca and Princess Leia. I started out enjoying them but by this time Darth was getting very sloppy with his light sabre and he kept whapping people with it because he was trying to get around them or was just not paying attention. He whapped me with it three or fourt imes and he was so incredibly annoying that I kept having to run to get away from him. He kept catching me though and then I'd have to run away again. I hated him, but in retrospect, he really probably helped me quite a bit.


By now I was closing in on Central Park and the last few miles of the course. This is about when Nike+ decided I had run 26.2 miles so it started congratulating me. I love that it thinks I ran a 4:30 race when I was really struggling through some kind of death march. That perked me up a bit, and I was in the park, which is filled with people and long downhill sections. Awesome!

This is also when I realized that my time wasn't nearly as terrible as I had feared. By this time I had talked myself off the 6 hour ledge and was figuring that I'd probably finish more like 5:30, but I realized that while my 5 hour goal was out the window, it was still possible for me to beat my PR of 5:07. Shocking!

I tried running more but I was still not maintaining many long running periods. Around here I started to think about Ryan Shay and was wondering where it was in the park that he had fallen on Saturday and tried my best to pull some inspiration from him too keep on going. That helped. Then I spotted the "1 mile to Go" sign and that reminded me of all the awesome Nike+ people, and that pushed me on a little bit, but then we exited the park and it got a little less exciting, and it got a lot more smelly (lots of horse manure from the carraige rides) and I couldn't run anymore. I'd also figured out that I'd have to run an even 10 minute mile to finish with a PR and that really seemed impossible to me, so I figured I'd walk a little around here hoping for a strong finish up the last hilll and across the mat.

I didn't quite pull that off either, but I'm amazed to have come so close tothe PR time when I felt so bad for so much of the race.

They handed me my medal and I read the back of it which had this quote from Alberto Salazar: "....a triumph of the will over all limits." I actually cried when I read that. I've never cried at the end of a race before but that got me. Luckily, it was a very short burst ofwaterworks and they were all cleared up by the time I got my finisher's photo.

What a day!

What I find completely amazing is that the race was almost identical to the race I had in 2006 NY marathon. But last year I felt prepared, and excited, and absolutely exhilerated for the whole race. I had nothing but energy running to the finish line, I was practically jumping for joy! (Check out my athlinks profile picture -- that's just a few feet from the finish line at the marathon last year.) I think the only real difference between the two races was the dialogue I was having inside my own head. I was my own worst enemy....but I still ran my 2nd best marathon ever. So all in all, I'm very happy.

Now I get about a week off before I start back on the training for Goofy. Clearly I have my work cut out for me, but it's very obvious that I need to schedule a lot of long runs. I'm solid over 13 but after that it's all downhill.

For the numbers people, here are the splits that were sent to me bythe athlete tracker:

Location Time Pace/mile
5 Kilometers 0:35:04 11:17
10 Kilometers 1:10:38 11:22
15 Kilometers 1:46:14 11:23
20 Kilometers 2:21:12 11:21
Half-Marathon 2:28:58 11:21
25 Kilometers 2:58:12 11:28
30 Kilometers 3:34:59 11:31
35 Kilometers 4:13:59 11:40
40 Kilometers 4:53:05 11:47
Finish 5:18:24 12:08 ------------- This is confusing. I think the 5:18 must be the clock time but all the other splits seem like chip times.