NYRR SHAPE Women’s Half Marathon 2019

After Jerusalem, I realized that I had run at least one half marathon a month this year so far. As I had already previously registered for the Long Island Half in May, I decided to see whether I could keep this trend going all year, and set about looking for an April race.

I found several of them. All of which were quite expensive. So much so, in fact, the least expensive of all was the SHAPE Half Marathon, especially when you factor in that I wouldn’t have to pay tolls or for gas to do this one. I have actually run it once before — in 2016 — but I didn’t pay full price for it then. Because paying $75 to run in circles in Central Park is ridiculous. I paid it anyway.

Only after that did I discover that during the summer months, if I want to run a half marathon, I have the option of City Tri races… or City Tri races. Those are stupid expensive. If paying $75 to run in circles in Central Park is ridiculous, paying $105 to run down the Coney Island Boardwalk is even more ridiculous. I’m not so sure I want to do that. Too bad I didn’t realize this until after I had shelled out the money for this race! But since I already had, I needed to get something out of it. I ran a surprise PR here last time, but I didn’t even dream that could happen again. I had so little faith that it could, I didn’t dare bring out the magic shoes.

These have been pretty magical in their own right, but every single half marathon PR I have ever run has been in the magic shoes. Ever. (Excluding my first one, but that four-hour broken-pelvis hobble obviously doesn’t count.)

I arrived way, way, way too early. Preferable to arriving way, way, way too late, I guess. Which is what would have happened if I had turned around to go back home for the nasal strip I realized I had forgotten… when I was nearly at the subway station.

Often, I will say that I don’t have a particular goal for a race even when I sort of do. This is not because I’m sandbagging; it’s because I don’t decide whether I’m going to go after those goals until a race has actually begun. If I feel like utter shit or the conditions are just awful, they’re all out the window anyway.

But I did have those goals, because I needed to get something for the $75. So I settled on 1:33:59 as my A goal (it would qualify me for NYCM 2020, which I don’t even want to run because I hope to be retired from marathons by then, but whatever); a PR (1:34:55 or faster) as my B goal; and a course PR (under 1:37:25) as my C goal.

I couldn’t decide whether to wear long sleeves or short sleeves; I ended up going with the latter, and was glad for it, because it wound up being much warmer than I expected. Given the weather (not just the warmth, but it was also stupidly humid), and that I knew I’d be lapping people from later corrals during the second loop, I mentally prepared for a big positive split, because it just made sense to try and run a little faster before it got too hot. This strategy can work, it just doesn’t feel that great.

I was on TV! I was glad to find this on NY1 because it helps to illustrate just how hilarious the corralling was. When I ran this in 2016, I started in C, and I could see how sparsely populated the first couple of corrals were. Now I’m in B, where I will probably stay for the rest of my life, but that usually means I’m still a ways back from the start line, because in most NYRR races, the corrals are of relatively equal size. Look how tiny AA, A and B are here. There were maybe four dozen people in all of them combined.

And there was no logjam at the start! Totally didn’t feel like an NYRR race at all without the bobbing and weaving and crowding. Not that I’m saying I missed it, because I absolutely did not. It was lovely to have so much space.

The PPTC cheer squad was positioned so that I passed them in the first, seventh, and final miles. See how delightfully empty the course is during the first mile? And how I don’t yet look like I want to die?

Photo by William Ngo

Central Park is hilly. Everyone knows this. I don’t actually mind Cat Hill — it’s just a blip. Harlem Hill sucks a little more, because it’s longer and steeper, but at least once you get to the top, you know it’s done. The West Side hills, though? They always kill me. Always. There are supposedly three of them, but I counted my way over them, I had already climbed three, and yet here I am, still going uphill! That portion took way more out of me than Harlem Hill did.

At the 10K mark, I was cutting it close to 1:33:59. It was starting to get really hot (how can a park filled with trees have so little shade?!), and my ITB was not so happy with me, so I was resigned to dropping down to my B goal if things didn’t improve.

Photo by William Ngo

As is obvious from the way I look here during mile seven, they weren’t exactly improving. (I’m super proud of my arm carriage, though — I’ve been working really hard on moving my hands down to hip height instead of having them up near my chest. Halfway there! And then once I’ve got that mastered, I can learn to keep my elbows tucked in more.)

This is around the time when I started lapping people from the back corrals. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if they weren’t five or six abreast. I’m not rude enough to go crashing through them, and for some reason the volunteers were directing everyone to the left (is it just me, or is the left supposed to be the passing lane??), so I had to do a lot more weaving than I would have liked to get around people. I had to skip the last few water stations (not the greatest idea in such weather) because there were just too many people congregating and I like to grab on the go. There were a few women from the earlier corrals still near me, but I think they were falling for the same “you’re running faster than the people around you” thing that I did last time, so I had to pay more attention to my watch than is ideal. And yet… the hills kept coming. And I wanted to run faster, but it was just too hard to do that on incessant climbs when the temperature and humidity kept climbing too. I was close to letting my B goal go, even though I hated to do it.

And then I decided that if I missed by a second or two, I’d be furious with myself, so I was going to do my damnedest to make it happen. Especially once I passed the 20K point, and I saw that my elapsed time was 1:29:xx — because I know that a kilometer in five minutes is roughly 8:00 pace, and I could do that. (Turns out that 1.1K in five minutes is actually 7:18 pace, but it’s a good thing I did not know that then.)

I thought that with one kilometer to go, it made sense to move over to the left to make the final turn to the finish. Except that there were still crowds of people there; they weren’t directed to the right until basically just before the turnoff. That was a bit irritating. But okay.

The turnoff was before mile 13. I looked at my watch when I passed that marker, and I remember thinking that I had a PR in the bag because it was just another tenth of a mile, and I had enough time to make it. But that tenth of a mile? It seemed to go on forever. It was like I had slowed down (I hadn’t) and the clock had sped up (it hadn’t), because I could see the numbers ticking down toward 1:34:55, and it was excruciating. I even forgot about my poor abraded big toes. (Seriously, what was that all about?!)

Photo by William Ngo

I have never in my life been more grateful that I have a decent finishing kick. Because otherwise, this could not have happened.

It’s a tiny one, but…

I ran a HM PR. For the first time since 2016. Without the magic shoes. In icky weather. And on a course that I find rather brutal. To say that I am astonished would be an understatement.

I mean, I missed my A goal, but given how I didn’t wear the magic shoes, I don’t think I really believed I could hit either that or my B goal.

As predicted, I positive split like a champ. I actually negative split this race the last time I did it, but the weather was better then, so that probably helped. And if it’s a positive split that got me a PR this year, well… I don’t much care how it happened.

Garmin recorded 13.25 miles in 1:34:42, 7:09/mi.

Officially, 13.1 miles in 1:34:40, 7:14/mi; 30/6139 OA, 8/970 F30-34. I just realized that my last HM PR was also at a women’s race. Maybe I should just stick to those!

A PR is a PR. But no need to look at McMillan predictions, since I’m “supposed” to be able to run a faster half than this! Which I maybe will. One day.

Brandeis 5K 2019

After running my fastest 5K in a year and a half last week, I wanted another chance at a flat race to see if I could pull off a PR in the absence of a headwind. That’s the beauty of race day registration: if conditions are crappy, you don’t have to show up. (Of course, some people do that anyway, but I’m not one of them. If I’ve registered for a race, I’m going to run it unless I am physically incapable of doing so.)

I did not want to drive a terribly long distance again, so I settled on the Brandeis 5K. It was an inaugural event — “first annual,” as they called it, which always drives me insane because there is no such thing — and those are always risky. The course wasn’t certified, which tends not to bother me so long as the distance is at least what it should be, and when I mapped it out on RideWithGPS, it seemed like it was.

Upon further thought, I decided that I was not going to rely on first-time race organizers to know that course marshals are a good thing to have, and plotted out the route on Garmin Connect to send to my watch so that I could run a warm-up on the race course and know where I was going during the actual event. That route measured 3.06 miles, which raised little alarm bells, but I really wasn’t entirely sure of where the start/finish would be, so I tried to convince myself it would be okay.

Sunday morning brought perfect weather conditions. What it did not bring was a perfect mental state for me. My brain is really not a very good one. And even as I got out of bed and prepared to leave, I kept thinking, It’s not too late, you haven’t registered, you don’t have to do this. I thought this throughout my drive to Lawrence, up until the moment I actually did register, because I felt like there was no way I’d be able to run even close to what I had the previous week, and then I’d just hate myself even more.

It was supposed to be overcast. Does this look overcast to you?

But by then I was committed, having already paid my registration fee, so I had no choice but to give it the best shot that I possibly could.

I’ve run a lot of PRs in the 1400 — either these or the v5 — so I was hoping to manage a 5K PR in them, too. Some leftover Jerusalem dirt for luck, I guess.

As planned, I used the navigation feature on my Garmin to run the course. My sense of direction is pretty pathetic, but what little of it there is is more landmark-based than anything… it’s easier to remember to turn left at the golf course, say. That circled spot was one I pinpointed as potentially giving me trouble during the race because there were several turns in and out of little curving streets. (Foreshadowing!) There were no directional signs or cones or anything, so it would really be up to me, and I didn’t want to use the navigation feature during the race because leaving my watch on the map screen meant I wouldn’t be able to see my pace and distance.

I did manage to get my warmup to total 3.1 miles, but I had to run a little past where the start line would be (having begun from the finish), so I was fairly certain the course was actually short. This made me feel like an all-out effort would be wasted, since I don’t think a PR on a short course counts. But I guess it would still help me gain a bit of sorely needed self-confidence if I could run it well, so there was that to consider.

And yet when a woman at the start line asked me what pace I was planning to run, I said probably around 6:40. Because I knew from last week that I could do it, and I really did not feel like I could improve on that when it wouldn’t even count.

There was no timing mat at the start, which I didn’t even notice at the time. In which case, I really wish we would have started at the northeast corner of the school lot instead of the southeast corner, because then the course would have been long enough, but oh well.

It was the usual sort of start with lots of kids on the line, involving a bit more weaving and nearly tripping than I’d like. One woman was ahead of me, and I reeled her in pretty quickly; the field spread out within the first half mile, and I found myself running alone with a pack of three men ahead of me, right behind the cyclist. They were running much faster than I was, so I lost sight of them within the first mile.

Actual course run during the race. See that little deviation where I’d predicted I would mess up? And by the time the race started, there were course marshals of a sort: police cars were blocking some of the outlets so we wouldn’t run off course, but not every street had one. The frustrating part is that where I went wrong, there was a police car… with one officer leaning into the driver’s window and chatting with a second officer inside the car. It wasn’t until I ran past him that he told me I had gone too far and was supposed to be running the other way, and I needed to double back.

By the time I turned onto the last long straight stretch, I had already been running all by myself for about two miles. From my warmup, I knew roughly how much farther I had to go, and I really did not think I’d reach 3.1 miles, even with my wrong turn. (Not that a wrong turn that adds distance makes a short course an accurate one, but at least I would have run 3.1 miles!) The closer I got to the finish, the more certain of that I became, but then… I knew this would probably happen.

There was a little curb to get into the lot with the finish line, and I was terrified I was going to trip over it, and I was so focused on that, I didn’t even notice until I was past it that there was a finish line tape!

The time on the clock would have both pleased me (because it would be a PR) and annoyed me (because it was a bit slower than I would ideally have wanted to run), except all of that is a moot point since the course really did measure short. For some reason, there’s sound in the finish line video, which is how I learned that the lead cyclist made a wrong turn too, only his shortened the course instead of extended it. I guess I did a better job of navigating on my own after all, which, trust me, is truly an anomaly.

Distance aside, that is five seconds per mile faster than a week ago, so that’s a nice takeaway, I suppose. If I extrapolate that 5:43 lap pace to another .03 mile… well, it would have been a really close call whether I PRed by a second or two, or missed by a second or two. But then, had I trusted the accuracy of the course, I might have run harder from the outset. There is really no way to know.

Garmin: 3.07 miles in 20:17, 6:37/mi.

Officially, 3.1 miles (ha, I wish) in 20:15, 6:31/mi; 4/142 OA, 1/82 F.

I went to my car to get my phone to run a few additional miles (I’d need it in case I got lost), and that’s when I noticed this.

I was not amused. It couldn’t have happened in the lot, as I had pulled in to the left of a car that was still there. I didn’t notice it before I left for the race, because I didn’t approach my car from the passenger side. I am now instituting a policy of doing a walk-around of my car every time I use it, so that I will at least know right away when something like this happens.

As far as car damage goes, I guess this is the best sort, because I managed to fix most of it myself. But that happened much later in the day, and I was so riled up about this that by the time I made it back to the finish line, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough time to run a few miles and still not miss the awards ceremony, so I waited. And waited and waited. But it’s a good thing I did, because evidently I won an Amazon gift card. In pretty much the right amount to buy the touch-up paint to fix the scrapes left on my bumper after I popped out the dent.

I’m not going to look at McMillan predictions, because I didn’t really run a 20:15 5K. And I probably won’t have another chance to race a 5K before it gets hot out, so… this will have to satisfy me for now.

Side note: it’s pretty common knowledge that “race day magic” often helps people to perform better. I always assumed this was due to having competition out there on the course with you, and it’s true that a hard effort can feel a little easier when you’re not running alone. So why is it that so many of my PRs are from races that I ran mostly alone? Even if I don’t count this one (the person directly ahead of me ran nearly two minutes faster, and the two directly behind me ran nearly two minutes slower), there’s the 10K from two weeks ago, my HM, 30K, and marathon PRs … it’s really kind of bizarre.

The Mixed Bag Prediction Run 5K 2019

It occurred to me that at the Run from Winter 10K, I essentially ran a 10K at pretty much 5K pace, which means I should be able to run a much faster 5K than that. Ignoring the part where I’ve always been better at maintaining a given pace for a longer distance than running faster than that for a shorter one, of course, but ignorance is bliss. I decided to run a 5K just to see what would happen, and I explored a couple of options. Both were at least an hour’s drive, which is a ridiculously long way to travel for a 5K, but after that 10K, I think I’m operating under the theory that having come so far makes me less willing to stand for running a bad race.

So off I went, in the Zante v4 because the top of my foot had been bugging me for a few days, and I don’t know if it’s the roomy midfoot or the upper itself, but the pressure is greatly alleviated in these shoes.

I chose the Mixed Bag Prediction Run. I wasn’t going to predict, obviously, because I need to wear a watch so there is evidence that this happened!

The weather actually looked decent. Though when I got out of the car, I was regretting the shorts because it felt much colder, and I was glad I had tossed a pair of gloves in my bag at the last minute; I was going to need them.

This part… not so much. Too much wind, too humid. Given my nonexistent sense of direction, I really had no idea how the wind would affect the race, especially since I didn’t know where the course was going to go. But I did affirm during my warmup that there was a nasty headwind in one direction.

I made it back to the start with a few minutes to spare and lined up pretty close to the front of a rather small field. I probably went out a little too fast, but I eventually wound up as second female, with the first so far ahead of me that I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of catching her. And then the third place woman passed me, so I just paced off of her for the rest of the first mile.

Just after the mile marker, we made a right turn into the wind. The buffeting wind. It was not pleasant, but I did use the opportunity to overtake the second place position, because I knew the wind was causing me to run slower than I wanted to, so it became more of a battle of placement.

My warmup did not venture toward the water the way the race course did. Wind is always worse along the water, so the 20MPH headwind was really not appreciated. But I did know that might be the case, so I can’t say it was surprising.

It was a relief to finally get somewhat out of the wind; I had stopped looking at my watch at that point because I knew a PR was not going to happen. But once I made that turn back onto the fitness trail, I saw that I could finish in under 21:00, which was great because it would have been quite pathetic to run a 5K at the same pace as, or slower than, the 10K from a week prior, so I tried to pick it up a bit.

It was faster than the 10K. So at least there’s that.

Garmin recorded 3.1 miles in 20:41, 6:41/mi.

Officially, 3.1 miles in 20:39, 6:39/mi. 6/124 OA, 2/71 F, and 1/9 F30-34. Fifteen seconds off my PR, but it’s also as close to that as I’ve gotten since I ran it in the summer of 2017.

Am I annoyed that after driving all that way, I didn’t get a PR? Sure. But I do feel like I have the fitness to run faster without these windy conditions, so it’s not as if this race didn’t go quite the way I would have liked only because I suck. I need to find a good course on a day with decent weather in order to make that determination.

I asked for that bib number. Because I’m a weirdo like that.