Long Island Half Marathon 2014

Before I get into the race recap, let’s review.

Devote four months to training for a half marathon with the goal of a significant PR: fall 42 seconds short of any PR thanks to a stupid injury.

Two months of haphazard “training,” the first two weeks of which consisted of zero running thanks to aforementioned injury: 39-second PR.

Right, then.  Moving along!

To be honest, I’d been starting to wonder whether last year’s Long Island was a fluke.  Then I realized that I came close to that in Tel Aviv, with an injury, so it probably wasn’t.  But still.  I needed a PR.

I should say, right from the outset, that I am not really in PR shape, and the injury that wrecked Tel Aviv for me is still not completely better.  I knew this, which should have deterred me from attempting to PR at all, but since I’ve run this course before — a year ago, which was when I last PRed in this distance — I know that it’s a great place to PR.  Seeing that the weather forecast was predicting 15 MPH winds should have deterred me further, but I guess I’m just a stubborn idiot.  The wind was supposed to be coming from the west, which is the best possible direction for this particular course, so I decided it wasn’t so bad.  (Not that we’d be aided by tailwinds the entire way — oh, no.  If only.)  I printed out a 1:43 pace band to keep myself from having to think too much about the numbers, since math and I do not get along at all.

So I woke up at 4.30, out of the house by 5.30, just like last year.  Which meant I got there insanely early, but I guess that’s better than getting stuck in traffic because of road closures!  About half an hour before the start, I ate a packet of Sports Beans and got in line for the porta potties.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And then some of us made the executive decision to, um… practice for our next ultra.  Let’s just leave it at that.

Mile 1, 8:00.  It was very congested at the start, but I didn’t mind too much because A. it would keep me from going out too fast, as I am wont to do, and B. we started out heading west, straight into the wind.  More people means more bodies to block it!

Mile 2, 7:40.  Eh?  Okay, that brings my average pace right to where it should be for 1:43, I suppose.  But I really would rather get a small PR than blow up trying to get a big one, so how about we don’t do anything stupid?

Mile 3, 7:36.  In retrospect, this makes sense — these couple of miles, I probably benefited from a tailwind.  Those aren’t always as obvious as headwinds!

Mile 4, 8:00.  My one rule here was that I wasn’t to run anything slower than 8:00/mile.  Time to stop this nonsense, okay?!  I need a few seconds’ leeway if I’m going to PR, since according to my watch I ran faster at Tel Aviv than Long Island last year, and I still didn’t PR.  I know I won’t run the tangents perfectly, so I have to run a bit faster to make up for it.

Mile 5, 7:54.  Strange, the things you remember… we passed by what I think was a motel called The Tiffany.  I have no idea why this particular spot on the route stuck in my mind from last year, but I distinctly remembered it.  Weird.

Mile 6, 7:50.  We passed a water station, at which point I remembered that I was supposed to take a gel every five miles.  That’s also pretty strange, that I’d have forgotten without the water to cue me, because last year I was counting down the minutes until the next one!

Mile 7, 7:58.  Oh, hello, headwind.  I was wondering where you’d gone!  This is starting to get more than a little uncomfortable, but at the 10K marker, I learned that at 49:18, I was about a minute ahead of my time from last year, so if I just hang on at this pace, I should PR.

Mile 8, 7:53.  Like it’s going to be so easy as all that, right?  I totally do not have the fitness to be attempting this right now.  This is ludicrous.  I should just throw in the towel.  Except it’s supposedly all downhill from mile 8, so that would be stupid.

Mile 9, 7:56.  One of the only “hills” on the course.  And naturally, this happened while we were running west, right into the wind.  Fun times!  Adding to the fun was the cup of water I grabbed, which turned out to be Gatorade, which I only discovered once it was in my mouth.  Splutter sputter spew, YUCK.

Mile 10, 7:56.  The full and half marathons split at this point.  I was mighty glad that I wasn’t doing the full, I can say that.  1:19:25 — under 1:20, still about a minute ahead of my time from last year.  So now I just need to run 5K in under 25 minutes, and I’ll PR.  I can do that, right?  Right?

Mile 11, 7:57.  Here’s another reason why I should have run faster: the wind was supposed to pick up as the day went on.  And you know what, right now I can tell that this is probably quite true.  And also?  When you’re riding a bicycle down a hill, and we’re running up it?  Don’t say, “Come on, keep moving!”

Mile 12, 8:03.  I know, I know, I said no miles under 8:00.  But that was before we turned west again, straight into a headwind that was steadily picking up speed.  My poor math-deficient brain figured that I had enough time to go five seconds over in each of the next couple of miles and still PR… not by a lot, but it would be a PR.  (A great song for this particular moment happened to come up on my MP3 player just then — Icon for Hire’s “Counting on Hearts.”  I mean, come on.  Lyrics that say Losing fire and growing tired, uninspired / But I will never let go / Never let up my hold / ‘Cause I know / Once you feel it you can’t unfeel it / Once you dream it you can’t undream it?  How perfect is that?!)

Mile 13, 8:02.  Back in Eisenhower Park, still running west, of course.  I hate it when it’s not a straight stretch to the finish line, when you get teasing glimpses of it through the trees as you turn left and right and left and right.  Gah!

Mile .22, [6:42].  I crossed the finish line just as the clock flipped from 1:44:59 to 1:45:00.  So I got my PR, albeit a teeny tiny baby one!  And then I headed straight for the medical tent for ice for my hateful legs… which I proceeded to carry around for much of the next hour.  It didn’t spend much time on my legs since I never really sat down!  That was dumb.

Per my Garmin, I ran 13.22 miles in 1:44:12, 7:53/mile.  (That’s two seconds faster than I ran in Tel Aviv.)

Per the official results, I ran 13.1 miles in 1:44:09 … which should be around a 7:57/mile pace, but in the official results it’s listed as an 8:01/mile pace, because they use gun time (1:44:59) for that.  Now, I ask you, does this make sense?  They supply mile splits at 2.3 miles, 10K, and 10 miles.  If they use chip time for those, why don’t they use chip time for the final results too?!

Whatever.  I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.  416/3612 OA, 84/1780 F, and 20/328 F25-29.  And a 39-second PR.  Admittedly, I’ve been spoiled in the HM PR department, since my previous ones were 2:07:39 and 6:51, but look at it this way… now it won’t be quite as difficult to PR next time!  Since I absolutely did not PR today due to smart training or anything resembling that — it was purely due to sheer obstinance that I gutted through this.  It was not pretty, and it did not feel good; but I can overlook that since I did eke out a little PR!

McMillan Prediction Game, shall we??

1 mile — 6:28
5K — 22:30 (7:14/mi)
4 miles — 29:14 (7:19/mi)
5 miles — 37:18 (7:28/mi)
10K — 46:43 (7:31/mi)
Marathon — 3:39:11 (8:22/mi)

Snort.