Most of my soreness has dissipated already, and I hope my dad and brother are faring the same. The three of us took on the Brooklyn Half-Marathon on Saturday and a good time was had by all, despite some hiccoughs.
Dad arrived a few days in advance, and after some enjoyable touring around NYC (pictures to come), on Friday evening he and I headed out to Brooklyn where Anthony and I had booked a hotel room; the race was scheduled to start at 7:00 A.M. on Saturday morning and we wanted to be ready to go. Our hotel was, if small, very clean and even stylish, although it was in a pretty dismal neighborhood. Dad and I had to walk for about 25 minutes before we discovered a restaurant that didn't sell greasy, pre-made slices of pizza or Chinese food (also greasy). As we walked, following a remarkably unhelpful map, we asked several locals to point us in the direction of Prospect Park, the location of the starting line. No one seemed to have any idea where it was, which is pretty remarkable considering that the park is enormous. We elected to take a cab in the morning, rather than try to find the park ourselves and risk being late. Anthony arrived, and after chatting and readying our race gear and attire, we went to bed.
The alarm went off too early the next morning, and we dressed and headed out into the gray morning light. Anthony and I purchased breakfast bagels and Gatorade at a corner mini-mart which we ate with Dad in the taxi on the way to the park. It took us a while to find the starting line, and because I decided to use one of the Porta-Potties nearby (which involved a 15-minute wait in line), we arrived at our appointed starting corral literally seconds before the gun went off. No matter - we were pretty far back and we didn't start running for 8 more minutes.
I ran the first two miles with Dad and Anthony, then pulled away. I clocked myself as I went with the Garmin watch Dad gave me after the NYC Half. It is unfashionably large, but it keeps track of my distance, pace, and time, as well as doing just about anything else one could think of. I felt ok, but not fantastic. There were more hills in the park than I had anticipated, and it was muggy. After 7 miles of looping around the park, the course opened up onto a straightaway through Brooklyn which led us towards Coney Island. With about three miles to go, I realized that I was going to have to push it pretty hard to beat my previous time of 1:44, and by the time I had a mile left to go I was absolutely spent and pretty certain I wasn't going to make it. A sharp turn which spit us out onto the boardwalk confirmed it: no way was I going to be able to shave off crucial seconds running along the tops of bowing boards. I crossed the finish line with a frustrating final time of 1:45. I'm not sure I could have put any more effort into it, however, so at least I have no regrets.
I spent the short time it took for Anthony and Dad to finish gulping down Gatorade. Anthony was suprisingly chipper, having finished much faster than he expected to (and sounding genuinely surprised by this fact, despite my telling him repeatedly that this would almost certainly be the case). Dad looked tired and a bit relieved it was all over. We didn't have the energy to look around Coney Island, and it's likely that no one would have wanted us to get too close to them in lines for food or rides anyway in our condition, so we headed back to the hotel to shower up and follow my somewhat skewed directions to my apartment in Manhattan. Our route included a fascinating and unexpected detour into a Harlem subway stop, for which Anthony was not grateful.
I made Guad Squad t-shirts to pump up morale (and make it easy for us to find each other).
I enjoyed myself, although not as much as during the first half-marathon. I'm disappointed that I didn't beat my time, and the fact that I was so close almost makes it worse. I'll get another chance soon, though; Anthony has decided not to run the Boston Half-Marathon this weekend and has given me his spot. I will have to look for my results under "Tony Guadagni," but I'm still looking forward to a run in a new city with Jane and Lucy.
Dad and Anthony in Coney Island, heading to the Subway after the race.
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