NYRR Fred Lebow Half Marathon 2024

The last time I ran this race, in 2022, I was disappointed that it was a minute slower than in 2020. I didn’t bother to register for it in 2023, because the weather is generally awful for this race, and I don’t need to further grind my nonexistent self-confidence to dust by running another shitty race. My feelings about that part were the same this year, so I wasn’t planning to run it.

But then I learned that NYRR was going to be highlighting that Fred was a Holocaust survivor, and the race is the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and they were interested in hearing the stories of descendants of other survivors. To say that I despise being in the limelight is as understatement, but there are so many idiotic Holocaust deniers out there… someone has to remind them that they are idiots. I am willing to be that someone, even if I feel like an idiot (albeit of a very different sort) myself in doing so.

All of this means that I wasn’t really thinking of it as a race. Of course, I was fully expecting to run my slowest half in years, but because I was only doing that in the first place for reasons unrelated to running, I didn’t think it would bother me so much. (Please note, I didn’t say I would like it. I just might not be as tempted to jump in front of a bus, is all.)

And surprise, surprise: the weather was awful.

This race joined only two others that I completed in full while wearing a plastic rain poncho, the first being Boston 2018, and the second being Lebow 2019. I do not enjoy running in a poncho. More accurately, I do not enjoy the conditions that make it necessary for me to do so.

The course is also really not very nice. Central Park is hilly, okay, but do they really need to design it so that the worst of those hills (Harlem Hill) is there three times?! And it was hard to take advantage of the faster downhill stretches on the east side, because despite what the photo above shows, the wind was coming out of the north, and a 20 MPH headwind is going to slow me down much more than a downhill will speed me up. No benefit of the tailwind on the west side, either, because of the stupid hills.

I did want a negative split. I also knew that probably wouldn’t happen, because I wanted it, and evidently that means I can’t do it. It was too cold and rainy to bother looking at my watch most of the time, but I did take note of the course clock at the 10K marker, then doubled it to see when I’d need to hit 20K, but then I’d have another kilometer after that and the math was getting too… math-y, so I just gave up. It was better to think about how angry I am that people deny the Holocaust ever happened, when I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to (why the hell would anyone want to do that?), because I’m reminded of it every time I hear my name. I’m named after someone who was murdered by the Nazis before she even got to be half my current age, and I don’t even have a photo to know what she looked like, which bothers me to no end.

The 1:35 pace group caught up to me around mile 8. I knew that all I had to do was stay with them, and then I’d have my negative split, but I hate running with pace groups (too many people), and anyway, I just… couldn’t. See: I can’t do anything anymore. I was resigned to not running a NYCM 2025 qualifier, which would mean I’d have to do in at the NYC Half, and that didn’t go so well last year… but I was soaked and freezing and I just can’t do anything anymore.

The misery did come to an end, eventually. It always does. (The physical part of it, anyway. The mental part… not so much.)

Garmin recorded 13.21 miles in 1:36:40, 7:19/mi.

Officially, 13.1 miles in 1:36:36, 7:23/mi. 404/2998 OA, 36/1440 F, and 5/186 F35-39. That last one is particularly irksome, because the fourth woman in my age group… also ran 1:36:36. And the third ran 1:36:11, which I have no business not being able to easily surpass, except my brain can’t seem to remember that I am a big fat slow useless shit now, which is bizarre because it’s been that way for so long.

But it’s a NYCM 2025 qualifier. And not my slowest half in years after all, thanks to the NYC Half shit show of last year.

And then, after I defrosted a bit, I took advantage of the free admission to the Museum of Jewish Heritage afforded to me by my race medal. Feels kind of dumb to be upset about something as stupid as a race after that.