It’s hard to recap a running year when everything was canceled for most of it. Well, I guess that’s not entirely accurate… running wasn’t canceled, in-person racing was. I managed to eke out a PR at Harry’s Handicap in January and at the Cherry Tree 10 Miler in February before the world imploded.
Starting in mid-March, all the “racing” I did was virtual. As such, any records I set were unofficial, and so I don’t count them as PRs because time trials are not races. (Those are the ones listed in italics.)
What I failed to do was run another sub-1:30 half marathon. I did a few in the 1:32 range (both virtual and in-person), but that just made me feel even more like the 1:29 was a fluke.
I also failed to run a marathon PR. This is largely due to the fact that Boston and NYCM were both canceled. I did run the virtual Boston Marathon, which is not something I ever imagined I’d do, but I didn’t give it the same level of effort as I would have given a real race. The fact that I ran just five minutes off my PR made me a little sad, because I probably could have improved upon that by quite a bit, but it is what it is.
Never mind that the more I think about it, the more I realize the odds that I will ever run a sub-3:00 marathon are getting lower with every passing day, which is … discouraging.
On the other hand, I ran more than 500 additional miles over 2019 (my previous best), so there is that. Aided wildly by the AlterG, of course, because there is no way in hell I would have been able to manage without it. I won’t go into any further detail since that would require talking about things nobody wants to acknowledge; I’ll just say that I really, really feel like I’ve pulled the wool over Fate’s eyes by remaining largely uninjured this year. It’s a miracle, and I am grateful for that even if everything else has gone to hell.
It’s been over a year since I ran my half marathon PR, and while I did come within a minute of that time in January, I haven’t run another sub-1:30 since. Granted, there weren’t many races in which to attempt it, but I seem to have settled into a 1:32-ish rut regardless of whether it’s an actual race or a time trial. At this point, I am fully convinced that PR was just a lucky fluke, and I was glad to have an opportunity to see whether I was wrong.
Except. Mother Nature intervened, as she tends to do.
I no longer bother to battle with the weather; that’s just not a fight I will ever win. In fact, I showed up to the race wearing warm-up pants over shorts, and a down jacket that I planned to leave in a backpack with the pants at the start line, since I didn’t know how far away I’d manage to find parking. I got lucky in that regard — I snagged a spot on the street less than a quarter of a mile away. And then I arrived at the start line and began to worry that the backpack with my layers in it would blow away. A legitimate concern, given that the porta potty was doing its best to do the same, and so I returned to my parking spot to leave my backpack there. Ten minutes before the start of my wave, I was in my car changing from shorts to tights. It was that cold and windy.
I started with a heat sheet wrapped around me, as I frequently do. The crinkly flapping was driving me crazy (and there was a lot of it, given how blustery it was), along with the footsteps I was hearing over that sound, which made me wonder why my footfalls were so loud. I learned the answer to that when I chucked the heat sheet in a trash can just before the first mile mark — they were not my footsteps. I assumed the person behind me was wearing Next%s, because those shoes have a unique clip-clopping sound. As irritating as it would be under any circumstances, it was made more so by the fact that the wearer was using me as a personal drafting device. To clarify: I am not against drafting in a race. If, you know, we take turns. I’m not going to do all the work for you. It was really pissing me off, and so I deliberately zigzagged a bit, which wasn’t so hard anyway since the wind was blowing me around so much that I kicked my own ankles a few times.
See? I’m being blown over! Okay, it’s really me leaning into the upcoming hairpin turn, but it sounds better to blame it on the wind. Note my shadow.
After making the turn, there was a bit of a reprieve because we were treated to a crosswind instead of running into it head-on. (Spoiler: that was less the case in the second lap.)
The one red spot is at the start/finish, which we crossed twice. I wanted to at least run an even split, so I took note of the time on the clock the first time, 6.6 miles in by my watch: 46:20. Which meant that I needed to finish under 1:32:40.
I finally dropped my shadow around mile 8, which was a relief because once he realized I was zigzagging because I was annoyed that he was right behind me, he started to run right next to me.
You will notice that I am on the outside of the course. I moved over a bit because of the cones near the finish mat, but otherwise I pretty much had my elbow brushing the railing to my right. There was nowhere else for me to go. It would irritate me to have someone running so close to me on a mostly-empty course under any circumstances, but more so during a pandemic. Seriously. Go away. (You might say I’m a bit more irritable than usual lately.)
There was a woman ahead of me on the course, and I knew that, but honestly, the whole “racing” aspect is kind of weird when there are multiple waves because even if you finish first in yours, someone from a later wave can still beat you. It makes it hard to stay motivated in that respect. Plus, I just feel like a steaming pile of shit anyway, so it’s not like additional help is required there.
Still, I did try really hard to sprint for the finish to make it in with a negative split. Sprinting directly into a strong headwind is always fun.
Garmin recorded 13.21 miles in 1:32:38, 7:01/mi.
I wound up running a pretty even split. (I don’t understand it — if it’s 13.1 miles, how is the mat at the midpoint 6.6 instead of 6.55?)
Officially, 13.1 miles in 1:32:37, 7:04/mi (and two seconds slower than I ran the virtual Staten Island Half this year, except not really, because my Garmin measured this course longer). And when all was said and done (read: all the waves’ results were in), I wound up 4/57 OA, 3/18 F, and 2/7 F30-39.
I’m super duper happy to have finished this intact; that’s my latest thing, just being thankful to emerge from a run in one piece. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. I’d just really like to be able to run something well, too. Which is why, I guess, I signed up for a New Year’s Day half marathon in Flushing Meadows Park, which is a wind tunnel all the time. I am not smart.
Running Break 