Race 2: Grete's Great Gallop - Half Marathon - Race Report

The NY running community was out in Central Park last Sunday morning to remember Grete Waitz, who passed away last year. The half marathon carrying her name was in support of her AKTIV foundation.

For some it was another half marathon, but for those of us training for the NYC Marathon, the Gallop was the last dress rehearsal. Moved to October 14th, just three weeks before the Marathon date, the Gallop coincided with the day of the final 20-miler in most training plans. So, me and my training partner opted to run some extra to complete the 20.

My life has a way of twisting unexpectedly and putting me in tough situations. Things can be running at their regular pace for months and the day before the race something comes up. So it was again. We were on a waiting list to move into a better unit in my apartment building and on Friday our number finally came up. We liked the apartment. The office asked me when I would like to move and I said "How about tomorrow?". Yes, I know, it is crazy, but trust me, I had my reasons. So, we ended up moving our apartment the day before a hard workout.

I knew I wouldn't be able to eat much after the move, because it would be too close to race time and thus cause stomach issues. I pre-fueled with a Le Pain Quotidien bread basket in the morning (seen below). Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. By the end of the day I was feeling depleted and a few hours later I was feeling extremely hungry. Still, I limited myself to some fruit and other snacks and decided to take as many gels I can to fuel during the race. I figured if I don't have anything in the liver or muscles, I would have to go with supplied fuel.

Le Pain Quotidien Bread Basket

I was still feeling tired the morning of the race. My legs didn't have that race morning excitement and my core area was sore from carrying all those boxes. Thankfully, we had a late start, so I did get enough sleep. I met my training partner at 9 for the pre-race workout. We ran about a loop of the Park (~5 miles, including the northern hills, excluding the south loop) at an easy pace, accelerating a bit towards the last miles and got to the start of the race. From this warm-up it was clear that this wasn't going to be a good race.

We targeted to start at marathon pace (10 min/mile) and speed up if necessary after that. I lost my training partner for a while in the crowded start. She caught up to me later at a water stop and told me she was going to go slow, because she twisted her ankle. Bad luck. Thankfully she was fine and was able to finish the race, but we ended up running separately.

I charged ahead at the marathon pace feeling worse after every step. After mile 8 I started to throw in some walks to eat more gels and recover. I went through the last 5 miles running at 9:00-9:45 pace as far as I could and then walking to recover. That still kept me at the 10:00 average pace range.

According to my Garmin I finished the race at 10:05 average pace in 2:14:04. I ended up running 0.2 miles extra due to crowding. The finish time was a bit of a downer, but I am happy to have completed the last long training day at marathon pace, despite taking walking breaks.

And now we taper and wait for the race. I will leave you with this photo of a NYC bus decorated with a marathon banner. Sorry for the quality of the picture, I have a bad phone.