This past Saturday, I ran the Brooklyn half marathon for the first time. This race has gotten a lot of hype, enough so to have convinced me to venture off Manhattan at the crack of dawn (I hardly leave the UWS, so this was a serious jaunt). My initial plan was to treat this as a hard long run, but not go for a PR. I’m targeting a 10-k in a few weeks and didn’t want to lose training time recovering this week. Well, that went out the window in like the first mile. Here’s how it went down:

Miles 1-3 (5k in 22:54) – The weather was beyond perfect. Slightly cool and overcast. I don’t remember ever being too hot which was a huge blessing because I definitely had been skimping on the pre-race hydration. We jumped in a car around 5:45 to head over to the start and ended up with plenty of time. My friend and I had planned on running together, and I had hung back in her coral with her so that we could. Ultimately, there was no one checking corals and we all ended up pushing our way towards the front anyways, so it wouldn’t have mattered. Did anyone else find it strange that they talked up the security measures so much, but this was the first race where I didn’t even see people manning corrals or hardly anyone at the start? We never felt unsafe, but I was prepared to have more of a hassle getting lined up, when in fact it was the most relaxed of any of the nyrr races I’ve run.

[Read more…]