Staten Island Half Marathon RR: Short and Sweet!

And another 2010 goal down. This was the last of the 5 half marathons that make the NYRR Half Marathon Grand Prix, a pikermi in each boro, and it was my favorite, by far.

The course was great, it had enough turns and hills to keep it interesting, one big out and back where you get to see everybody, and perfect weather, 47 degrees at the start!

And I PRed!!! I managed a 1:42:47 (7:51 average pace), 21 seconds faster than Philly two weeks ago! Hand me that donut!!

Onto the race morning pictures!

Our group picture made it into the NYRR Gallery, pretty cool.

Luciano and I had been invited to the

we went in and we were only there for 5 minutes. It was kind of crowded and missed our posse so we went right back out!! We geared up, trying to stay warm which was impossible, and got to our corrals. We were shivering like maniacs. I stayed with Blaise for around half a mile, then I lost him! The race really went by in a second, and I don’t think that had ever happened to me before! I was going pretty fast in the beginning and I was trying to gauge if I could hold that till the end. In the Bronx half that’s what did me in, I couldn’t hold it. Turns out, this time I did have it. Here is the splits, I was manually lapping with the mile markers:

Ah, and you never know how much you need your arms until you are going up a nasty big hill. I slowed down a lot on those, but I had no choice! At some point I looked down and couldn’t believe 7 miles had already been done, what? I was passing people left and right in the last 4 miles. By the time I got to Mile 12 I knew it was all downhill and I hit the gas. And, oh surprise, there was speed there! I was ON FIRE. Ah, what a confidence boost less than a month before the marathon! Now I am back to freaking out again as to what that ultra will do to my legs and if I’ll be able to recover in time. Grrrr. This is really driving me nuts.

New shoes did well. I just need to get some 40 miles more on them before the marathon. Too bad I probably won’t be running much this week given the 50K is next Saturday.

NYRR put a crazy shot of me at the finish line in their Gallery. My only option was a single arm bangle pump, no RitzV was possible!