Well, well, well. A two-month racing hiatus that was, in essence, voluntary. Who am I?
I say “in essence” because under ideal circumstances, I would not have done that. It just seemed stupid, in this economic climate, when the cost of everything is going up but my paycheck is as paltry as ever, to pay money to run like shit because I feel like shit. I can go for a slog (hey, is that a compound word for “slow jog”?!) around the neighborhood for free. Which is what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months while I attempt to figure out what the hell is actually wrong with me, since I’ve never had very high ferritin levels but I’ve also never felt this terrible.
Said ferritin levels may also be why the cold is hitting me especially hard this winter… in which case it seems even more bizarre that I registered for a January half marathon. In my defense, I saw that it was near capacity and panicked and signed up on the spot, and I was in Mexico at the time, so I sort of conveniently forgot that it would likely be brutally cold and I would be embarrassing myself in my first race with the long-coveted A bib.
I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d come close to a PR, but I figured I would use the opportunity to notch a 2023 NYCM qualifier, just in case I decide I want to do that race. (I apparently also forgot that I’m already registered for the NYC Half.) Except that I feel like such a useless zombie, I wasn’t even sure I could manage that. Once upon a time, I could pretty much drop a sub-1:34 in my sleep, but now all I want to do is sleep.
I was absolutely kicking myself for registering for this instead of the Icebreaker Half (which, spoiler, I would have won), because I could have driven to that race in my nice warm car and stayed in it until a few minutes before the start. It was so lovely to instead wake up two hours before the sun rose to trek way up to the start line at the mercy of the MTA… a start line which meant climbing Harlem Hill three times. I’ve always hated the West Side hills more than either Cat Hill or Harlem Hill, but nobody wants to deal with the latter three times! Especially not when the real-feel temperature is in the teens.
Though one benefit of it being so cold was that everyone checked bags, so after I made a couple of bathroom stops, I headed into the 102nd St. Transverse to bag check… and walked nearly to West Drive to reach the end of the line. This was a good thing because by the time I finally got my bag checked, there were less than ten minutes to the start, so I didn’t have to spend too much time hanging around in the cold. (Less ideal: didn’t have time for a third bathroom trip, which would have been nice.)
First time up Harlem Hill, it felt like everyone was passing me while I was standing still, because of course I have no business wearing an A bib. I knew I needed to run around a 7:03 pace (per my watch) to be assured a sub-1:34, and I was so far off that at the first mile marker, it was almost laughable. And when we hit the West Side hills, it didn’t get much better. After that, it did improve a little bit, but I had to do all that again. And again, in the case of Harlem Hill.
It hurt. Not in an “I am running faster than I am physically capable of running” kind of way, because from an aerobic standpoint, it wasn’t much harder than a normal long run effort. I didn’t have any particular out-of-the-norm painful areas… it just felt so. damn. hard. Because everything feels like that these days to me, even existing.
My mitten choice was also not the wisest. I generally prefer these convertible mittens for races because then I can just flip off the mitt to use my fingers to access my gel, but it was so cold and I felt so dead that, ironically, I had no energy to bother with the gel. I did take some Gatorade vs. water in lieu of that, but it hardly made up for the shortfall. If I’d only gone with my ski mittens instead, my hands might not have been in such agony, but my hands get hot in those when I’m not racing, so I thought they’d be overkill.
Then again, I also thought a hat would be overkill — I hate having things on my head and prefer headbands just to keep my ears warm. But it was cold enough that I opted for my two-in-one so I didn’t need to worry about what to do with the required-for-the-start-corral face mask, and I only briefly lowered it to my neck before pulling it back up to my chin because it was so frigid. I know I don’t handle cold well… but this is just ridiculous.
Pretty much the whole race consisted of skating close to the edge of making the cutoff… and when I hit the mile 13 marker, I knew that I probably had it, which was a huge relief because to say that I would have been royally pissed off to have suffered through this for no reason at all would be an understatement.
I guess the effort level is pretty consistent, given the hills.
Garmin recorded 13.26 miles in 1:33:40, 7:04/mi.
Officially, 13.1 miles in 1:33:34, 7:09/mi. 296/4575 OA, 15/1763 F, and 6/253 F35-39. This is a little surprising because I felt like so many people were passing me, especially lots of women, but apparently that wasn’t the case. It’s also a little annoying because I was so close to winning an AG award (only the top finisher broke 1:30). And of note: in 2020, I ran 1:32:33, with the first 10K in 44:15 (vs. 44:16 this year), so sixty seconds of the 61-second difference were lost in the second half. Prime racing strategy right there.
But, whatever, it’s good enough for a NYCM qualifier, so mission accomplished, I guess.
Random bizarre aside: I went to Trader Joe’s after the race, and while I was walking there, my hip started to feel weird. When I walked to the subway after that, it didn’t just feel weird, I literally could not walk normally. I, of course, completely freaked out (hip/groin pain and discomfort will do that to you if you’ve had multiple pelvic fractures).
And then the next day, my hip and glutes were super sore, but that seemed to be about the worst of it. Very weird, though if all’s well that ends well in that department, I’m not going to ask too many questions.
Running Break 