Amelia: More+Fitness Half Marathon Recap

Annnd I’m back!

After way too long a winter, I finally kicked off my 2011 racing season this weekend with the More+Fitness Magazine Half-Marathon.  I was actually supposed to do two other races in March, but scheduling conflicts (cousin’s wedding!) prevented me from racing.  Therefore, I was very excited to shake off the spider webs, stretch my muscles, and pound some pavement!

You might remember I ran the More+Fitness Half two years ago – my first half marathon!  I loved the race then and was happy to find that not much has changed.  The race, which is women only, is 13.1 miles around beautiful Central Park.  This means two loops of the whole park and then a small loop around the bottom of the park.  For those that have run Central Park before, yes that meant TWICE up Cat Hill and TWICE up Harlem Hill.  A workout to say the least.

I arrived at the race about 25 minutes before the start and it was already in the 40s, perfect running weather.  Before the start of the race there was a nice tribute to Sally Meyerhoff.  Sally won last year’s race but died in March 2011 when she was hit by a car while riding her bike.  The award for the race’s winner is now named for her.

Once the race began, the main thing on my mind was how I would be feeling as the miles started to pile up.  I’ll be honest here.  I had not trained well for this race.  Between work, the weather, and any other excuse I could think of, I had not gotten a lot of running done.

My first few miles felt kind of sluggish, but I was happy to see I was maintaining a little over a 10 minute mile.  As I settled into my running groove I started to feel better, more confident with my abilities.  It just felt so good to be outside running again!!  The first loop around the park went by fairly quickly.  However, I knew the real test would the second time around the hills.

Around mile 7 (shortly into the second loop), I was grabbing water and realized I was right next to a pacer for the 2:10 group.  Errr?  I was not on pace for a 2:10 finish.  I decided to try and stay with the group for as long as I could.  Did not last long!  My guess is that the 2:10 pacers were a little behind because I felt like they were gunning it the whole time I was with that group.  Once I accepted that I was not going to hold their pace I was able to get back into my stride.

Of course the hills sucked the second time around.  There was no getting around that.  But they were do-able and I knew it was (pretty much) downhill from there!  In past half marathons I have struggled around miles 9-12 and summoned just enough energy to push through to 13 and into the finish.  This time, even though I was slower than I would have hoped, I think my pacing was much better.  Before I knew it I was at Mile 11 and still feeling pretty good!  I held my pace through 13 and sprinted that final .1 mile.  Final finish time was 2:30:03.

I was treated to a nice surprise near the end of the race.  As I headed down the finishing chute I spotted Deirdre and Shannon cheering for me in the crowd!!  Totally made my day.  I have such awesome friends.

The other thing that made this race great was that someone had written “Become Your Dreams” in chalk all along the course.  It was like my running angel the whole time.  Each time my foot landed on one of those messages I knew I’d be able to push it a little further.  Big thanks to whoever took the time to write that!

Love the shirts too!  How genius to have women’s-cut shirts for a women’s event!

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