The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

“Half marathon. Full intensity. Love it!” TK from Pigtails Flying issued a challenge to come up with a six-word description of a recent race, and I felt mine from this morning would be a good place to start this entry. Let’s break it down, two words at a time:

A half marathon is still a long ass run. I was pretty wiped out when we got to the double digits and my thought as I crossed the finished line was, “Thank god it’s over, I don’t think I could do another 13.” Of course, this November, 13.1 will just be the half-way point. Today’s race pointed out how difficult getting ready to run the full marathon is going to be. At the same time, it was a good milestone. If I can finish a half marathon strong, what’s preventing me from finishing a whole one? (”Nothing” is the right answer, for those of you keeping score.)

Full intensity: I put everything I had into the preparation for today and then today during the race itself. I honestly don’t think I could have finished any faster than I did — 1 hour, 36 minutes, and 14 seconds. I paced myself well, stayed hydrated, and finished with a very strong last mile. I didn’t quite hit my goal, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Instead, it was because I am not yet at that level of performance as a runner. It’s good to know exactly what I’m capable of in longer distances now. As promised, I am going to forget about qualifying for Boston this year and instead simply focus on finishing the marathon intact. I don’t want to push too much and my body told me today that it’s not going to be ready to run a sub-3:10 marathon in four months.

Love it!: True, I didn’t run as fast as I wanted, but I still had a hell of a lot of fun. The weather couldn’t have been any better; it was raining as I walked down to the start from my house and then stopped just in time for the start of the race. It stayed cloudy and cool the whole time, though, and only started to rain again during the awards ceremony. The stretch of the run where we got out of the park and went down 7th Avenue through Times Square was amazing! I got such an adrenaline rush from the crowds and the noise and the lights that I flew threw that whole stretch (maybe a bit too fast even.) Then, at mile 12, still having enough gas in the tank to pick it up a notch and start running strong felt really good. Pacing has been my biggest struggle as a runner, so for me to be able to accelerate the last mile at the end of my first half-marathon was a huge personal victory. Finally, of course, there was the post-race. I met up with Antonio and a couple of his friends and we watched the awards ceremony before going to get brunch. It was a perfect end to an (almost) perfect morning.

After all is said and done, I really have no complaints. I came out and ran the best race that I could and now I just need to focus on what’s next. Philadelphia, ready or not, here I come!