Bronx Half Race Report

I suppose that it's possible the Bronx Half Marathon could have gone worse for me. For example, if the subway derailed on the way home. Or maybe if a gang turfwar had broken out at mile 8 and I'd been shot -- actually, that might have been an improvement. Before you go any further, I should warn you that this will be a whine-fest, pity party that will likely bring your mood down below my black toenail. If I were you, I'd stop reading and go find a happy blog. If you like train wreck stories, read on. . .

It all started when I woke up at 5:10 to get ready. I was out of cereal. I always have cereal before a race. It's a thing. It takes me over an hour to get to most start-lines and I need to be fortified. Oh well, I can adapt. I went to the Bagel Store (yup, that's it's name) across the street for breakfast and then caught the train. So far so good. The L comes and I'm into Union Square. The line I'm needing has three trains, the 4, 5 and 6. The 4 will take take me to the start. As I'm walking through the station, I notice that people in front of me are suddenly running. It's the 4! Despite a mad sprint towards the platform, I don't make it and the doors slam in my face. Ten minutes later, the 6 arrives. Now, for you non-New Yorkers, the 6 is the local train to the 4's express, stopping at about 4 stops for every one the 4 stops at. Plus, it will only get me about halfway to my destination. However, I know they're running on the same track because of weekend work below 42d Street-Grand Central, but that once I get to Grand Central I should be able to switch to the 4 Express. I take the 6. When I arrive at Grand Central, I detrain and hang out for another 15 minutes before the 4 comes. It's going to be tight, but at this point I'm still thinking I can make the start with time for a warmup. However, when they announce the next stop, I discover that there's no express service. It was really nice of MTA to NOT put that on the weekend service advisory. This might be a problem. I change into my shoes and pin my number en route because I realize I won't have time at the start.

The station closest to the start is out of service. I'd allowed time for a walk to the start, but apparently not enough. The roads up in the Bronx don't follow the train tracks or a grid. We weave east, west, south at one point, I think? We walk past a parking lot of Verizon trucks, and the storage yard for Subway trains. And dog shit. It's everywhere. Like every three sidewalk blocks. (Not city blocks, but blocks of the sidewalk.) So, foul -- at least when Brooklyn has a Half, the train drops you off near the start, which is on the Ocean. This is a dump.

So, with all my delays, instead of arriving 30 minutes early, I'm at the baggage check at 5 minutes to start! At this point, my stomach starts gurgling and growling like Thomas' during a long run after burrito night. I run toward the facilities, but see that we're decidedly undersupported. There's like 3 lines to the Porta-johns with about 80 people in each. This is a problem, but after the start gun goes off, people suddenly start moving more quickly (and a few ditch the line). So I get to the toilet. I walk in and the first think I notice is that there's no t.p. Great. The next thing I notice is that someone has left a full pack of tissues next to the hole. Things could be turning around. Then I notice the "present" on the seat. Apparently, someone missed and left a nice 6" high, slimy brown pile sitting on the side of the seat. I'm not really even sure how that's possible! I mean, if you apply ass to seat, it's pretty hard to miss. I decide maybe I don't really need to go the the bathroom after all.

So, I finally get to the start after the last of the walkers have gone through. There's a NYRRC race official yelling us to the start. "Come on people. Hurry. Let's move." I mean, at this point we've already missed the start by several minutes. What's the rush? I chat with a guy near the start to fish out if he'll plow through the crowds with me. His target pace is 7:15 (he'd spent over an hour looking for parking) which I thought was too slow. Little did I know.

There was no clock at the start, so I don't know how long I'd missed by. I looked at my watch at the first mile marker. . .8:12. Hmmm... It seemed like I was going faster than that, even with all the weaving I'd had to do and having to jump from the road to the sidewalk and run around shrubberies and toys sitting in front of stoops. But who can judge pace when no one around you is going faster than a 10:00mm? I should be flying past them, even at 8:00mm. But I figure I'd better speed up. As I approach mile 2, my watch reads 8:17. Now wait a minute! I'm looking at the time, not my splits! I'd forgotten to hit my watch! Arghhh... I switch it over. I missed the first 2 water stops because of the crowds of people stopping. Actually, I dart to the far side of the road, but still nearly have nastly collisions from people stopping to walk across the race route to get a drink. Oh, this is going to be a long run. . .

Miles 2-6 were pretty uneventful. I was feeling more tired than I should have been, but my watch said I was hitting between 6:50 and 7:10. A little off the pace, and I felt I was working a little harder than I'd have liked, but I'd been through a lot this morning. And I got to cheer for slower Flyers as I was passing them. At 6 miles, I was still feeling ok enough to pose for a picture.
At about 6.5 miles, I caught John Ward, who organizes the trail runs that I sometimes do. He said I was looking good and I believed him . . . stupid, stupid, stupid. At about 8.5 miles, I started feeling cold. I mean, cold and shivering. It was freaky, although I thought perhaps it was just having dowsed myself with too much water. I definately couldn't hold my 6:50 pace anymore. By 10 miles, my quads were cramping. Slowed some more. At 11 miles, my chest started to feel tight and I was having problems getting air. And I was really feeling cold. It was actually kind of frightening and for the first time ever, I stopped and walked through a water stop in a race between miles 11 and 12 to try and recover a little poise. I trudged through the last 1.1 miles in a daze. Nicole said she yelled at me near a turnaround in that stretch, "but you didn't look up." Ward caught me with a little over 1/2 mile to go. I was really just trying to survive the march back in. To finish off the festivities, after I made it back into the City, I grabbed a shower at the New York Sports Club before going into the office (yup, had to work this afternoon). When I pulled out my clothes, my singlet I'd thrown in the bag after the race had soaked my "clean" pants through right in the crotch. Perfect. Great ending to a big FUBAR.

My gun time was 1:44:50; my chip time was 1:38:43; a 7:32 pace. Which is 30s off my PR pace I set on half as much training volume back in March. It's also 17s slower than the pace I'll need to maintain for 26.2 in October to get a 3:10 marathon finish. Finally, its over 2 minutes slower than my first half in the Flying Pig Marathon, a race I was admittedly undertrained for. That's disheartening. The silver lining is that my watch time for the last 11.1 miles was 1:26:22, which means that those first 2 miles (when I was trying to get clear of the crowds) were at 6:10 pace despite the weaving. That's good news because it means that the last 4 miles of this race were a true bonk and not a reflection that I'm can't do this. So, hopefully this disaster is just a blip. (And, I've added my PR times to the sidebar so I could feel better about myself.)

Now though, I need some advice because today's subpar run has left me in a quandry. Tomorrow's a rest day, but Tuesday I'd planned to convert my scheduled threshold workout to a recovery run in light of the race. But with the bonk, I don't know whether the treat today's Half as a non-event and push through the threshold run or keep my planned recovery run. Thoughts from "real runners" out there?