Sometimes, despite all odds, everything comes together and you have a great race day. Saturday was one of those days.
On Friday afternoon after work, my coworkers and I headed to Greenpoint to pick up our race packets for the Inaugural Rock n’ Roll Brooklyn Half Marathon.
One of my coworkers had run two half marathons several years ago and hasn’t run much since, and the other two had never run a half marathon before. Somehow I talked them all into running this race with me – I was excited but hoped they wouldn’t hate me afterwards! (I made brunch reservations at a place with unlimited mimosas so I hoped that at least that would ease the pain afterwards, no matter what happened during the race.)
The expo was smaller than I expected, but more annoyingly, it was all the way out in Greenpoint, the northernmost edge of Brooklyn before it turns into Queens. It was nowhere near the race itself but also nowhere near a subway. It was rainy and windy and difficult to get to. I was feeling pretty grumpy about it. The silver lining was that we got to take the East River Ferry back to my apartment, and got a great view of Manhattan while waiting for the ferry!
Two of my coworkers who live far from the race stayed at my apartment, and we made pasta for dinner and were in bed by 10pm. My alarm was set for 4:45am and I got out of bed pretty easily. We met my neighbor and all took a cab to the race (apparently our driver smelled like alcohol but I didn’t even notice – at least we made it there safely!) and ran into my mom at baggage check since the trucks were organized by last name.
We walked pretty far to get to the corral entrance and walked through metal detectors. We had been told that there would be porta-potties inside the corrals, but there were only four every six corrals or so, and the lines were about a hundred people long. It didn’t even come close to the number of porta-potties they needed. I was waiting in line for one for a bit but it was getting close to the 7am race start and I didn’t really have to go, so I got off the line and went to my corral.
It was a beautiful, clear day after the rainy night before but it was very cold. We all stood huddled in the corral, waiting for the race to start, for THIRTY MINUTES past the start time. They made several announcements saying they were waiting for security clearance from the NYPD and there was nothing they could do about it, but instead of a 7am race start, the elites started at 7:30am. I didn’t cross the start line until 7:38, at which point I was shivering violently and couldn’t feel my toes. I almost didn’t want to run anymore, but that seemed like the only way to warm up…
I started running, teeth chattering, but by Mile 1 I had warmed up. Mile 2 was an out-and-back and I definitely sped up. Seeing the elites zoom past and waving to my faster PPTC teammates gave me a boost of energy and I wondered whether I was going too fast.
Let me just stop here and make it very clear how little I trained for this race. I did manage to get a long run in almost every week, but my weekday runs were inconsistent and short. The most I ran in one week was 25 miles, but most weeks it was 15-20. I also did no speed-work whatsoever. I had originally planned to race both Rock n’ Roll Brooklyn and the Philadelphia Half on November 22nd, but since I didn’t train that much in the months leading up to Rock n’ Roll Brooklyn, I just decided to use it as a training run in preparation for Philly.
In addition, my right Achilles had been bothering me on my last few runs. I foam rolled every day for the past week, and put on KT tape on the morning of the race. Suffice it to say I had zero expectations for this race.
Sometime after Mile 2, I met a girl wearing a Prospect Park Track Club singlet that I had never met before named Sherry. I asked her what pace she was running and she said she was just using it as part of a 20 mile training run for the NYC Marathon. I told her that I was trying to run as close to my PR as possible (1:56) but that I hadn’t done any speed-work and hadn’t trained as much as I should have. She looked at her watch and said, “Well, it looks like you’re on pace for that right now.”
I was like…well…it’s early on, but this pace does feel comfortable so far. So we ran together for the rest of the race, talking a bit, but I mostly listened to music to keep me going. It was just so helpful to be running next to someone. Sometime after we’d passed the halfway point, Sherry said, “I think we can do it,” and I was like OKAY GAME ON LET’S DO IT!
I never would have pushed the pace that much and gone for a PR on Saturday if I had been running alone. When it got tough, I just told myself to keep up with Sherry. No thinking, just follow. My Achilles was bothering me a little bit, but not enough to really cause concern. I took a pack of Clif Shotbloks with me (Margarita flavor, for extra sodium!) and took two at three different points in the race. I also took a sip of water at every water stop; even though it wasn’t very hot out, I still wanted to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated.
The course was well-designed except for one major thing: the big Prospect Park hill came around Mile 11.5. Cruel, just cruel! We powered up the hill at around an 8:40 pace, passing lots of runners in the process, and it took me about a half mile to catch my breath after that.
We sprinted to the finish and crossed in 1:54:14 – a two minute PR!
Some shots of my finish line pain face:
I could not believe that I had PR’d! I went into this race with no expectations and wasn’t even going to really push the pace that much, but with great weather and Sherry running with me and helping me keep the pace, everything came together for a great race.
Afterwards, I hung around the finish line festival to wait for my coworkers, listen to the bands, get a free beer, and get my medal engraved with my finish time (which I always love to do if I got a PR!)
After we all found each other, we headed to brunch at Scottadito Osteria Toscana in Park Slope, which has a delicious prix-fixe weekend brunch with unlimited champagne and mimosas for $20. Check it out the next time you’re in Brooklyn!
Overall, I enjoyed this race. The Rock n’ Roll group puts on a good show. It was pretty well-organized, except for the very late start and lack of porta-potties in the corrals, and the swag (t-shirts, medals, free beer at the expo and after the race) was great. My other complaint, besides the hill at Mile 11.5, is that there weren’t very many bands along the route. They had announced weeks before that because of NYC zoning laws they wouldn’t be able to amplify music until 9am, so I wasn’t expecting loud music. However, I was expecting that there would at least be a band every mile or two. There seemed like there were only 3 or 4 along the whole course. That’s the whole point of a Rock n’ Roll race, right?
Possibly the best part was that our medals double as bottle-openers!
Also, this finish line photo made me laugh so hard. Remember this internet meme from a few years ago? Well, apparently I looked exactly like the “What I’m pretty sure I actually look like” photo at the end of this race…
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Have you run a Rock n’ Roll Race before? What did you think of it?
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