A Tale of Two Beaches (Part I)

To be honest, I can't believe I did that myself.

A lot of things happened in March and April, and the New York Road Runners didn't make my life easy as they moved the Brooklyn Half-Marathon April 26th to May 3rd -- the day before the New Jersey Marathon due to Passover. Like the role I had in the Philadelphia Marathon, I was supposed to be a pacer in the NJ Marathon, but well... things happened and the deal fell apart.

For the longest time I went back-and-forth of whether I should run the Brooklyn Half or the NJ Marathon because I signed up both. At one point I was going to drop New Jersey for an obvious reason, but then I revisited the opportunity and asked myself, maybe I could do both.

I really had no long distance training since the 13.1-mile training run on March 2nd at Central Park, where I slightly hurt myself running on the trails. Though, judging from the performances I had at the NYRR 8000 and the Adidas Run for the Parks 4-miler, I knew that I was in mid-season form and I shouldn't pass this opportunity to really challenge myself. Moreover, thanks to the NJ Marathon organizer where they added a special "4 a.m. Marathon Train" from Penn Station on race day, I didn't have to worry about overnight accommodations. Eventually I decided to do "The Goofy" on May 3rd and 4th. Actually it was like racing in the Indy 500 and then the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend!

The anxiety of running both races didn't really sink in until Thursday afternoon at my softball game. I was thinking about the races during the game and tried to preserve myself as much as I could in order to build up my endurance. Though, I had some Brooklyn Lagers at the Dive Bar that night... Brooklyn Lager and the Brooklyn Half? What a match!

On Friday, I first went to NYRR headquarters on the Upper East Side to pick up my Brooklyn Half packet, and then took the NJ Transit to Long Branch, NJ to pick up my marathon packet. Long Branch was a really nice town and I truly enjoyed my brief stay down there! When I picked up my packet in the "Big Tent" people were very friendly. As a matter of fact, it was so relaxing down there I didn't really want to take the train back to NYC! But I had a race Saturday morning in Brooklyn so I had to go back.

I got up bright and early on Saturday because the subway ride to Coney Island was... looooong. I got on the Q train at Times Square and it took forever to get down there. Whoever invented the iPod, thank you!

I was assigned to the first corral (#0) based on my Run for the Parks pace (6:23), but I wasn't sure if I was going to go all out because of the marathon the next day. Well, when you got the adrenaline rush you just couldn't back down and I didn't. We started on the boardwalk and since I ran the same race twice before, I knew how to tackle the crappy wood logs and it was actually a nice run next to the beach.

On the boardwalk I was focus, and consistently ran at 6:45 pace for the first two miles. And since I started from the front it was a smooth sail early, as we stormed down to Ocean Parkway for the yawner. Ocean Parkway was pretty much a flat straight and you had to run flat for four miles. Since I had a few flat traning on the West Side Highway the flat section didn't bother me anymore, and the whole time I was just trying to keep the pace and occasionally looked for people to draft to save some energy. Though, near the end of the straight I wanted to have some PowerBar gel on board and when I reached the back pocket of my new shirt, it wasn't there! I guess I dropped it somewhere, oh well...

As we entered Prospect Park, my previous Brooklyn Half experience came into play. The NYRR often falsely advertised the Brooklyn Half as a flat half-marathon... not true. When you hit Prospect Park you would realize that you run uphill 90% of the time. Lesson learned, as I saved enough fuel early for the final 4 miles in the park.

Unlike the previous years, the hills weren't as steep solely because I had something left in my tank. I was able to re-pass some runners who used up the power2pass on Ocean Parkway, and it really helped my psychologically. In the end, I crossed the finish line at 1:32:57 (7:05 pace), which set a new personal record that I set two months ago in the Bronx Half-Marathon (1:34:11). I actually felt pretty good after the race as I walked back to the finish line to watch other people crossing the wire.

But unlike the Manhattan Half-Marathon and the Bronx Half, I was by myself when I exited the park, and tried to get ready for the next race within the next 20 hours.

Stats
Overall Place: 483/5832
NYF Team Place: 7/109
Finish Time: 1:32:57
Pace/Mile: 7:05 (PR)