Booggie Down Bronx -Birth place of hip hop, Haagen Daz, yours truly, and a bad half marathon course

Yesterday I ran the NYC Grand Prix Bronx course. Like I said in my previous post, I thought it would be nice to run in a fairly unfamiliar borough with a few familiar streets. The weather prediction reported a cold and blustery day, so I bundled up and headed out. Waiting at Columbus Circle for the D train was pretty funny. The platform was filled with runners, everyone with yellow chips on their shoes and many people were already loading up on Gu (Why!? Eat a REAL breakfast people!).

It turned out to be pretty warm, so I ditched the scarf, hat and gloves and lined up for the race. The guy next to me started talking to me and so I asked him if he ever ran the course and if so what it was like. "Not hilly like Central Park. It's the flattest course you will ever run. I always run my PR in this race." Really....Taking this information, I ran the first 5-6 miles WAY to fast. It was hilly, but I thought that maybe there were little hills and that we were done with them. Oh no. More hills. Then a really long, hilly, boring out and back stretch on Grand Concourse. Oh yeah with polar temp. and gale force head wind which convienently appeared about 30 min into the race. Seriously, it was so windy that the big post for the mile markers fell over. And it was always head wind. At some points I felt like I was aqua jogging because I was running so slow. So I slowed down. A LOT. Then I got really tired at mile 9. I got mad. I also got really hungry and tried to eat a Cliff bar. But the water station was far away and my mouth was dry from the polar winds and the bar just expanded in my mouth. I spit most of it out. I got really mad at mile 10 when I saw that dude who LIED to me and told me this was a flat course. I yelled at him. Not my best moment and if I could apologize I would, but I was mad and tired. I played Head like a Hole over and over again. I saw Katie cheering me on at mile 2 and then with John (who is like super human fast) at the end. It gave me enough energy to finish. Seriously, that was a boring 13.1miles, but...I'm glad I did it and I did it at a respectable 9min pace (faster than Manhattan, but Manhattan was a lot of fun). I promise I have learned my lesson and running only the occassional half marathon is not a good idea. No injuries, but this can't be good. I have to start regular running workouts.

Two down, three more to go. Brooklyn is next.