NYC Half

This past weekend was the first of three big races for me planned this spring, the NYC half marathon. The other two are Cherry Blossom 10 miler (2 weeks) and Pittsburgh Half (6 weeks). This was my first road race in NYC, and while I’ve spectated a couple of Emily’s races in the last year, this was a new experience for me. Also a new experience was getting into the elite field of a big NYRR road race. I cannot say enough about their operation there; Dave Monti, Sam Grotewold and their crew really run a tight ship and at the risk of too many metaphors it ran like a Swiss watch as far as I could tell. This will be a recap of most of our experience over the weekend as well as a detailed race report.

Race Report

The weather race morning was cold and a noticeable north wind. This would likely help the times out, since the back half of the course runs straight down the west side highway and would be helped by the tailwind. I put myself near the back of the elite field at the start. Broadly speaking, the course was a 10k counter clockwise loop (or almost loop) around the main ring road of central park, down 7^th avenue through Times Square, west out to the West Side Highway, and south down the highway, through the Battery Park tunnel, up to the finish. The miles in Central Park were mostly rolling hills and I linked up with a decently sized group for much of this. Myself and a local Ethiopian ran side by side through miles 3-6 when we were joined by a couple more guys, including Chris Bendtsen who I remembered from racing against Princeton. Once we got out of the park and into the city streets, we packed up and worked together to combat the headwind on the stretch getting to the WSH. Once we got to the highway and turned south, it became a real race with the tailwind and everybody just ran to their fitness level. I got dropped by the group around mile 9. A few minutes later the Ethiopian pulled up with what looked like a side stitch and I went by him. That would be the last guy I would pass. For the rest of the race it was just about running right on the ragged edge. Coming out of the tunnel was the 400m to go sign and two turns later there was the finish.

Positives: I was very nervous going into this race that I wouldn’t have “the right stuff” anymore when it came to digging deep and getting 100% out of my body during the race when it counted. It had been so long since I last ran truly flat-out on a good day (Broad Street of last year) that I was worried I might have forgotten what it was like. I also believe I managed my effort pretty much perfectly throughout the race and was always in a good spot. The first 10k in the park was hard but controlled, working the hills and trying to relax and maintain focus on the downhills. Once we got onto the WSH with the exposed tailwind and hit mile 9 the hammer was down for everyone and we just ran as hard as we could. This good effort management is reflected in my splits:

1^st 5k: 5:14 pace (slowest segment, with rolling hills into the wind)

2^nd 5k: 5:13 pace (still rolling hills, but mostly with the tailwind)

3^rd 5k: 5:04 pace (fastest segment of the race; net downhill from the park to the WSH)

4^th 5k: 5:06 pace (straight down the WSH running on the redline)

Last 1.1K: 5:05 pace (whatever was left)

I was also happy with my taper for this race. I felt very good in the 3 days before, and part of that was probably due to nerves and general jumpiness but also due to a slightly longer and more gradual taper. I trust in the background of work over the last 3-4 months that I won’t “lose fitness” by taking training a little easier for the 7-10 days before a really big race. This kind of insecurity is something I’ve always struggled with and is one of the main reasons I think top athletes need coaches.

Negatives: Put simply, I’m not in the kind of shape I hoped I was in. In hindsight this should have been pretty clear; despite running good mileage and having a good workout progression since December, the background of shorter speed (two springs ago, I was coming off of 3:50 1500m/14:05 5000m fitness) and overall uninterrupted quality and quantity hasn’t been there in the long term. More importantly in the only real test race I had at Club Challenge I ran slower in a losing effort this year. I had hoped that I would come around in a big-time race and that on the day with a good taper I might have something special, but like pretty much my entire career it’s very predictable to a trained eye looking at the training. Looking at the splits and remembering how the race felt, I don’t think there is any single aspect of fitness that I’m lacking relative to anything else. I just need to keep working on overall specific fitness, both underdistance and overdistance work to keep getting in better 50-65 minute racing shape. Hopefully this race will be a big stimulus for the next few weeks and I can have a solid outing at Cherry Blossom and Pittsburgh, but for now the focus is on recovery and getting back into training smartly and with an eye towards Cherry Blossom, less than 2 weeks away.

For the immediate future, I’ll probably get in a workout this week, maybe Thursday, which will be by feel and definitely without pushing too hard. Something longer on Sunday, but again not anything super strenuous, then the usual taper routine and midweek workout on Wednesday.

Overall Trip Experience…Report

Emily and I left Baltimore on the train around 5 pm Friday afternoon. We arrived at Penn station and, thanks to the race’s elite director Dave Monti, got to the hotel easily on a short subway ride. We dropped off our bags and got a quick dinner spot from the front desk. Dinner was a Ramen place, a typical tiny NYC basement eatery where we sat at the bar and watched two young Asian guys crank out bowls of meat-and-noodle based soups.

The next day we got up, had breakfast in the hospitality suite (penthouse of the hotel with great views) and went for our runs in Central Park. This hotel had a great location just three short blocks away from the park, so even with the snow still on the sidewalks it was an easy jog over. Apparently it was a popular time for the elites to get in their pre-race runs because I saw guys like Callum Hawkins, Chris Derrick, Amy Cragg and others I didn’t recognize out there.

After an easy run and strides we hung out in the hotel and watched some March Madness until lunch. Emily and I both went up and while I checked in and got my finances straightened out she had lunch and headed out to meet her sister and brother in law at the movies. I went to the bank, came back and went to the USADA meeting followed by the race technical meeting. We all had to sit through lots of lecturing and talking about the race details.  After I got out of there, I met Emily, her sister and husband for dinner at a place near Central Park. Pretty good spot, could have been a really expensive dinner but we stuck to burgers. By the time we got out of there it was getting late and we just headed back to the hotel and tried to get to sleep early.

I never sleep well before races and I was especially nervous for this one, so I tossed and turned all night and finally woke up 1 minute before my 5 am alarm. I headed up to the suite to get some breakfast and got my stuff together for the 6 am bus departure. Short bus ride but long walk through security to get to the elite staging area. Hung around for not too long before we had to go warm up; even though our race started at 7:30 we were to be at the line (with our warmups on, thank God) just after 7. I warmed up with Jared Ward and Noah Droddy and had a funny exchange in which Noah told us he wasn’t even getting free shoes so he had to wear old, beat-up flats. Jared told him he should at least be getting free gear…this proved especially prescient after the race was over.

I wrote a detailed race report above, so I’ll skip that here. After the race, Emily found me immediately and we made our way to the India House, a restaurant near the finish that served as the VIP area. I got some coffee and food here and went for a short, pretty painful cooldown with a few other guys from the elite field. We got on the first bus back to the hotel, which took seemingly forever due to the combination of race fatigue and Manhattan traffic. I had a rough period of feeling really sore and drained once we got back to the hotel but after Emily we walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for church at noon, which was a pretty amazing building inside and out. We got back to the hotel, packed up all our stuff and eventually left from the lobby as a big group to the post-race lunch.

This lunch was one of the most surreal and fun race-related social events I have ever been to. Surreal in that Emily and I got to rub elbows with some of the elite athletes in our sport and talk to them as regular people, and fun because the food and wine was never ending and was all comped. Sitting at a table with Olympians and record holders from around the world was fun and cool, I’ll leave it at that.

After lunch Emily and I headed for Penn Station, just a few blocks away, and went home our separate ways. She was going to her parent’s house and I was headed back to Baltimore so I had a 2.5 hour train ride to sink back into fatigue and enjoy some quiet before being back in the real world.