NYC Half marathon . . . DONE!!!

QUICK POINTS:

• NYC Half Marathon, sponsored by the New York Road Runners (NYRR). 
• My next crazy athletic challenge

NYC Half Marathon

This past Sunday, I had the wonderful opportunity to run the 13.1 miles through the immense borough of Manhattan. *Side note: I think that the island only is about 2 miles at its widest part.*  This race took us runners through Central Park, Times Square, West Side Highway, and the Financial District (FiDi). This blog entry will be mostly a photo blog.  I was a little sadden that I did not achieve my goal of running this half in one hour and 45 minutes; BUUUUUUUUTTTTT, I did achieve a personal best (PB). I think the fartleking on the West Side Highway, really improved my time. I am a little annoyed that I had to use a portapotty during the race because it cost me about 3.5-4 minutes.

Next Atheltic Challenge:

After training for an athletic feat for months, one can get slightly depressed once you have completed your event. You know, because you do not have anything to look forward two. To circumvent this issue, I really think that I will train for the Rock n Roll Marathon in Montreal this upcoming September.

Looks fun, huh?

Montreal has become one of my favorite cities and I think that it will be super cool to run 26.2 miles through this city. After running the NYC marathon in 2013, i wanted to run a marathon in another U.S. city and in another country. I had signed up for the San Francisco marathon but I screwed up my back really bad and did not run it. Hopefully, the same will not happen as I prepare for the marathon in Montreal. Fingers crossed. Next step is to find a decent sub 4-hour marathon training plan and COMMIT, COMMIT, COMITY to it.

Almost there!!!!

The NYC Half Marathon is just a few days away and I have completed my last training run for this race. Today's entry will focus more on the last long training runs. 

Since the weather was AMAZING this past weekend, I decided to do my last "long" run in Central Park. I say "long" because this run was a tapering run, so I had to run only 6 miles.  Although I have done some hill work by running across bridges in the city (Williamsburg and 59th street bridges), I will be honest to say that I have not done as much prep as should have. The fact that the Half is mostly flat is a saving grace. 

The route. 

This tapering run was perfect for me, because it simulates the first few miles of the NYC Half, which happens to be the hilliest of the course. 

Elevation information. 

The course from New York Road Runners (NYRR)

It looks like once I get out of Central Park then it will be smooth sailing through Times Square and the West Side Highway. However, I have heard that there always are medium to strong head winds in Times Square. 

The run itself on Saturday was pretty fun and I did a negative split for the run. Hopefully, I will be in "race mode" on Sunday, which would allow me to run a little faster (or find a pacing partner). Although I do not think that I will make my 1:45 (or 8 minutes/mile pace) goal, I do look forward to enjoying this race. 

Some shots during the run:

Post run:

For some odd reason, I have been craving a papusas for the past few WEEKS. Papusas, which are kind of like areas filled with meat, cheese, and/or beans, are the national dish of El Salvador. After my run and spending a few hour in the lab, I decided to drag myself to Mi Pequeno Salvador restaurant in Elmhurst, Queens to enjoy some salvadorean food. I did get my papusa but I also tried a "hearty" soup. 

Sopa de mariscos 

This soup (which had clams, shrimp, a whole crap, and boiled eggs) was soooooo huge that I could barely walk after finishing it. Next time I will either have a hearty soup or papusas - not both. 

Nyc Half Marathon Training Runs 24/45 and 25/45

Two posts in one.  

Saturday was supposed to be a lobg run day - 11 miles. Let's say tgat I did not get anywhere close to that - a measly 6.3 miles. At the start of the run, I knew that it was going to be a struggle: 

1. I did not get much sleep. 
2. My route was dumb.  
3. I still had some soreness in my hip flexors and in my upper left theigh.  
4. I just was not feeling it.  

Nothing much to write about. The run was dumb, and I sucked at it. The only good part of the run was exploring Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, on foot.  

The route

Training Run 25/45

4.00 mi; 8'29" min/mi pace; 140 ave bpm; 5, 078 steps; 429 calories burned

After my disastrous long run in Saturday, I was elated to do my favorite training run on Tuesday - INTERVALS!!!! 

The route and the run.  

Pretty simple, huh.   

• 0.5 mi warm up
• 4x o.5 mi fast (7:15-7:45 min/ mi) and 0.5 mi recovery (sub 8:00min/mi)
• 0.5 cool down.  

This run was done in Saratoga park, which is in my neighborhood and is becoming one of my favorite local parks. I love this park for intervals, because the outer loop of the park is approximately 0.25 miles - similar to a real track. This similarity allows me to practice really racing conditions with my intervals. Plus, 0.5 miles is the lowest increment that my Runtastic and Fitbit Charge can do, so I can run my 0.25 mi intervals without constantly looking at my tracker to check my distance. 

This run returned some of the joy that I had lost doing that long training run on Saturday.  

That is it for now. I think that I will try to do some weight training sometime this week.

Btw, I do not know if I really like Squarespace's blog feature because it is very struggle. 

1. You cannot change the order of uploaded pictures with the Squarespace blog App on a mobile device. 
2. Image uploads take forever. 
3. Half the time, I do not know if my edited pictures will come out the way that I want them once I post the blog entry. 
4. Many times it is very difficult to edit the images that I uploaded using the mobile app on desktop app. Plus, the mobile app does not allow you to edit the images. 

I will see how long  I will continue using this format.  

NYC Half Marathon Training Run (???/45)

The East side gets no love.  

4 mi; 8'21'' min/mi; 146 ave bpm; 5, 149 steps; 428 calories.  

After class on Wednesday, I decided to do a quick run up the East River greenway into Harlem. What a  bad idea because the greenway is closed (once again) at 79 street, so my run became a back and forth run. I hate changing my running plans at the last minute.  

The route ... Sorta  

The rant 

This supposed greenway has been "in progress" since I moved to NYC -BACK in 2002!!!  The West side has its nice greenway with beautiful sights into New Jersey and various activities and parks. Where is ours (although I now live in Brooklyn, I will always be an east sider at heart)? I firgure by now, 2016, there would have been a continuous greenway that would go around the entire island of Manhattan. This probably happen in 3019, if the island of Manhattan is not underwater by that time. But, I guess you gotta make lemonade out of lemons. 

What a beautiful site, huh?

Roosevelt Island ( "the little apple in the big apple"), the East River and the Queensborough Bridge. Hey, you can see my old apartment building from here. 

This was a quick update because the mobile app did not save the previous draft, and I did not feel like rewriting the entire post.