Autumn Marathon

Brooklyn Half Race Report

Completed the second half of my spring Half Marathon “double” in Brooklyn last Saturday.

The time was not quite as good as my race in Binghamton 6 days earlier - 1:52:27 (8:25 pace) for 13.1 miles vs. 1:48:09.  Overall, though, the result was just as satisfying:

• allowing for the warmer temperature and higher humidity which tend to slow you down!
• the current Brooklyn course is a tough one both physically (two big hill in the first 5 miles) and psychologically (Ocean Parkway is a looooong, grueling straightaway).
• I got to run with and to duel with Ami, a friend and PPTC teammate.  We started and finished the race in lockstep; in between, she dropped me three times on the hills, then I passed her on the straightaway before she caught me in the final hundred yards.  She’s a much better, more experienced runner than I, so it was a thrill to tie with her.  Following is a picture of us taken right after we finished.

Two half-marathons in six days was kind of a scheduling error, but I decided to stick with it partially because I had strong personal reasons to run each race and partially because I decided that it would be good mental preparation for running NYC in November.  Running a half marathon hard is a grind - 13 one mile runs followed by a sprint.  Repeating that 2x in one week was difficult, but satisfying.  It also was my test of the CrossFit Endurance training approach which emphasizes running form, functional fitness and low-volume, but high-intensity running. It went well enough that I am willing to scale the approach to prepare for 26.2m in the fall.