New York Half Marathon

18^th place. 63.00

I got up at 4.30am to grab some breakfast before the race. Bagel, banana, coffee and Gatorade got me fuelled up and I was down in the lobby at 5.30am for the shuttle bus over to the NYRR headquarters. The plan was to relax there for a little while before the race but in actual fact I only had time to wait in the long line for the toilet and then get on with some jogging. Lee and I headed over to the course, ran for twenty minutes and then grabbed our stuff and headed over to the race bus, which would be taking all our stuff over to the finish for us. It was the usually frantic scrambling for clothes and shoes as the helpers shouted at us to the get to the start. I realised how cold it was once I got to the start area (1 C) and wished that I had grabbed my arm warmers. I was very relaxed as I knew I would run well as long as I stuck to Greg's game plan of staying relaxed through the eight miles around central park and then start to really work over the last part of the course. The race started out and I was amazed that I was feeling very easy running in the back of the pack. I quickly realised why once I passed the first mile in 5.03! The group quickly changed pace and I tried not to over extend myself covering the move as I knew the hills would slow the pack down and I could catch them then. That is exactly what happened and by 3 miles I was on the back of the group but again they surged so I decided to stay steady off of it knowing that I would catch stragglers as the race went on. I don't think there was any flat running in Central Park. It was all ups and downs, twists and turns. At this point, Lee and I had a Kenyan latch onto the back of us as we took turns in the lead. Lee pushed on the flatter to downhill sections and I pushed on the up hills (very unlike me but I felt strong). We finally got out of the park and the long straight road to Times Square was a good road to assess what was happening to other runners and who I could aim for. Things had stretched out up front but there were still a lot of guys ahead of me. We were finally on the flat part of the course and I felt strong with five miles to go and knew that I would be able to stay that way all the way to the finish. There is a downhill section of the course to the waterfront but we were running straight into the wind. Lee decided to go to the front and pushed on before the turn and 5km to go. It is a straight road to the finish and if you are having a bad race, I could see that this stretch of road would seem to last forever. I felt good so it was actually too short and I ran out of road. From about eleven miles I started to push on to try catch Jason a hundred metres up front and only the Kenyan guy came with me. I almost caught him whilst the Kenyan out sprinted me but I was happy with how I performed. It wasn't particularly fast but the strength was in my legs and that was what was important. The race finished down at the bottom of Manhattan so a bunch of us went on a long cool down and Lee and I took our cameras to get photos of the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero. I spent most of the day relaxing, walking a bit and then getting another run in around Central Park before the Post Race dinner.