I am going to combine two races in this post because… yeah.

Shape Women’s Half Marathon

I had paced the 1:45 two years ago and this year I was doing the 1:55 as I jumped in late to cover another pacer. This is what a great-looking-and-pacing amount of pacers before the race look like:

The one in blue on the side is awesome Melanie, who organized us all and made sure we all were matchy-matchy and pacey-pacey! hey, where’s 1:45? I am confused already, but at least we lined up in order!

So, 1:55 translates into 8:46 per mile, and we pacers aim for even splits so you have to come close to the exact 8:46 per mile but keeping into account we’re all finishing 30 seconds before the time we are shooting for. Because… no one wants 2:00, every one wants SUB TWO, correct?

Here’s lot of pictures from the race itself:

I lined up in the back of the corral, so the people in the corral behind us could also come with us. I found a few friends in the corral (Heather and Tina) who run with me all the way until Mile 11 or 12 when they really had to speed up. It was a lot of fun. Had so many people being so happy that they could keep up and achieved huge PRs… I kept telling them to hold on, and then, after the second Harlem Hill to go if they felt they had more. Somehow, most of the stayed, at least until the last mile. Every one did so great. It was quite fun and exhilarating to run with such a big group. We all introduced ourselves, we chatted, we sang, we really had fun. Look for the pacers in the next NYRR race you do that has them (not all races have pacers) and see if it makes a difference… and let me know!!!!

Japan Run – 4 Miler

I run to the start and met Patricia…!

hey there, well, the 2 mile warm up was quite telling. I felt heavy, slow, tired, and all those… UGH. The 4 milers I usually run in around 7:00 or 7:02 pace… First mile was a struggle and I couldn’t keep up with Patricia, I felt like all 15 corrals passed me. Mile 1: 7:18. Mile 2 is when I usually speed up and dip into the 6s… Mile 2: 7:01. Ouch, that was slow. Good thing that I wasn’t looking at the watch at all! Mile 3 was the slow mess is always is: 7:31. And I usually make up for it with a last 6:4x or 6:5x last mile. Not today…

Last Mile was 7:01 again. Oh well. I blame Juan. 😉 he was in Florida, doing his Half Ironman over the weekend and he left me unsupervised. I ate ALL THE JUNK. ooops. Not good. When will I learn?

Patricia and I met with his husband and their awesome daughter as she was to participate in her first race. We were looking forward to see if she was just like mamma.

Lillie is gonna be taller than Patricia in a minute… We had so much fun watching the kids’ races. I used to do that for every race, why did I stop? It’s just SO funny! We had a great time and now I am just looking forward to the next short races… two this week!