New York City Half Marathon recap State number 19.Registration -- The NYC Half is a lottery entry. In order to get registered for this race you have to be an elite racer and show proof of time in a qualified race. I don't remember the qualifying time, but suffice it to say, I did not qualify. There are three other ways to get entry to this race.
- Enter the lottery -- I did, but I did not get picked
- Join a charity team -- the minimum amount needed to raise for your charity to gain entry was $1300 and this was a guarantee, so if you do not raise the money from your friends and family, then you had to pay it yourself.
- Book your hotel accommodations through Anthony Travel
It was on the more expensive side but I thought it would be fun to run through Manhattan, through Times Square, and through Central Park, so I figured it was worth it. Also, Valerie and I were able to go and see Hamilton and enjoy the City together for a couple days.
The picture above pretty much sums up the race. It was downright cold. The iPhone weather forecast was fairly accurate for the race. At the start it was about 28F and never got above freezing until well after I finished.
The shirt and the medal were nice and the only other swag was a United Airlines nylon cover that I picked up at the expo. I was planning on wearing it during the race, but I lost it somewhere between dropping off my jacket at bag check and the start line. It looked like this. Or maybe I could wear it like this:
Anyway, for the first 3 miles and before the start and after the finish, I sure wished I had it, and was wearing it in some way. Instead, I mostly just shivered.
EXPO
The expo was about a 45 minute walk from our hotel. It was sponsored by New Balance, so there were really no other vendors there. All of the clothing, shoes, and accessories were New Balance. I was looking for another pair of shoes as I have about worn out yet another pair of Brooks Glycerin 15. I did find a nice visor that I liked and actually wore during the race. I also bought a cap, but it was neon yellow and simply did not match my outfit, so my daughter would not let me wear it.
In the expo, they had a wall with all of the registered runners names on it.
After the expo, Valerie and I walked another 45 minutes to Broadway where we took in a matinee and saw Hamilton. It was a good time. I can't say that it was worth the ticket price, but I am not so sure any 2 hour event is going to give me the entertainment value for the price of those tickets. Having said that, I just remembered that I am spending about $1000 every month to go and run 13.1 miles in somewhere around two hours, so maybe my perspective is skewed a little.
The race started in Brooklyn. Through Anthony Travel, part of the arrangements was a bus trip from the hotel to the start. The bus was supposed to pick us up at 5:15am, but my bus did not leave until about 6:00am. Then, we drove over to Brooklyn and several of the streets were blocked off, so we had to walk about 3 blocks to get to what we thought was the starting area, but as it turns out, the start area was around the park and it was a little over a mile around. I missed my designated bag check time as a result, but got my bag checked into the "late check" truck. It worked out fine, but it was a pile-up and mob mentality, mass confusion. After bag check, we had to go through metal detectors and then we could enter our respective corrals. I was in wave 1, corral D. I came out of the metal detector and saw corral K. It took my a good 10 minutes to get to the back of corral C. The elite racers on corral AA started at 7:30am and corral D started at 7:38am.
There was a mass of people. They say there was 22,500 starters and the results read 21,956 finishers. Lots of folks on some not so large roads.
From Brooklyn we ran over the Manhattan Bridge and into Manhattan, around the city and through Times Square, then through Central Park and finishing in Central Park.
While running through Times Square, for three miles or so, my Garmin was acting up. It showed that I ran a 6:38 mile, and two miles in the 5:30 pace range -- I did not run that fast. That was kinda funny, but it made it a little difficult because I was unable to gauge my pace. I had no idea how fast -- or slow as it were -- I was running. Afterward, it was clear that I had slowed a bit heading in Central Park.
Central Park had some sneaky hills and I continued to slow. Prior to that, I was running pretty well. I was calculating a PR until about mile 9, then I felt like I lost it. Oh well. I ran pretty well, but missed my goal a bit.
Not too bad, but not what I was thinking during the race. As you can see, I slowed after the 10k mark, sadly.
Still had a good time, had a smile on my face and a thumbs up for the race.
Next race is Louisville, KY. The Kentucky Derby Festival. April 28 . Should be fun.
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