NYC Half Marathon Race Review 2015

On Sunday, Tom and I ran the NYC Half Marathon sponsored by United Airlines and Tata Consultancy Services.  I must have tried at least 25 times to write this post, but I'm having a bit of conflict over this race. It was good...not magical, but good.

Sometimes its a race and sometimes its a journey.  I decided early on that the NYC Half would be a journey.  Perhaps that was my first mistake.  I convinced myself that I wanted to live in the moment and take photos along the way.  Note to self: the next time I want to "live in the moment", I'm doing it at a pace that makes me happy.

Anyway, we got into the city at 5:30 am and many of the parking garages were closed.  Surprise!  Instantly I could feel Tom switch into panic mode.  We finally found a garage under Lincoln Center that was open.  Parking was a mere $36, but that's NYC for you.

It was still dark and cold outside. Not brutally cold, but early-morning-in-mid-March cold. We decided not to use gear check because there's always a million people clamoring for their stuff, and we wanted to avoid that. Perhaps mistake number 2.

We arrived at the start line with a little over an hour to spare. So now we stood there, in the cold corral for over an hour before the race even began.  Mistake 3.  My toes were frozen solid.

Finally, the race started and Tom and I stayed together.  The first 6 miles were a loop of Central Park.  After doing the 9+1 program last year with NYRR's, I came to realize that I'm sick of running around Central Park.  It's very hilly and slightly boring IMO.  Tom saw a friend of his from Goruck at mile 4 and stopped for a quick photo. "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up" is a Goruck mantra.

After 6 miles, we exited Central Park and headed down Broadway towards Times Square.  This is where the race took on an epic feeling for a few minutes.  We slowed down and took in the lights and sounds of Times Square.  It felt amazing to be there.  We saw ourselves on the big screen and the crowd support was great.  When we reached 42nd Street we headed for the West Side Highway.

There were DJ's set up along the route to entertain us and I thought it was funny that two different DJ's were spinning Run DMC tunes.  One played Walk this Way and the other played It's Tricky.  Talk about a 1980's flashback! All of us older folks were singing along.

So now we turn onto the West Side Highway and boom, we're hit with a cold, damp wind.  I'm tempted to fumble around to see if I can find my gloves (which are in my jacket pocket which is tied around my waist) but it was too complicated.  I decided to deal with being cold.  We ran past Chelsea Piers and head toward the Freedom Tower, which looks so far away at this point.

There are decent amount of spectators along West Side Highway as well as drummers, CHEER NY and more DJ's (this time it was Fireball by Pitbull).  They really did help to keep us all moving along and they made the race a lot more fun. I even forgot that I was cold.  Best of all, Tom wore a shirt that said "Running Sucks".  That received A LOT of funny comments along the way.

Once we made it downtown, we passed the Freedom Tower and headed into the Battery Park City Tunnel.  Tom and I have driven through this tunnel in the past, but it suddenly felt a lot longer running through it.  Our last incline was when we exited the tunnel and made our way towards the finish line on Wall Street.

We crossed the finish line in 1:58:49 (me) and 1:58:50 (Tom). It was not a PR for us, but what we started together, we finished together and I believe we can tolerate running together at the NYC Marathon in November.  I only lost Tom once in the crowd and that was because I stopped to take a picture and he didn't realize I had pulled over.


We grab our medals and headed out of the finish line chute.  Everyone was provided with a grab bag which included water, Gatorade, an apple and pretzels.  There was no after party like other races.  Since we didn't check any gear we didn't have warm, dry clothes to put on.  That was our own fault.  I noticed however that the gear check line, at both the start and finish were empty. There was no chaos to drop off or pick up your stuff. We should have taken advantage of gear check. Just sayin. 

We made our way to the subway, got back to our car and headed home.  Tom decided to take the GWB since the West Side Highway was a nightmare of traffic because of the race.  We made it home by noon and had the rest of the day to relax and enjoy a nice late lunch.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

If I ever get a chance to run the NYC Half Marathon in the future, I will.  I think my expectations may have been a bit overboard.  I mean lets face it...of course it's fun running down Broadway into Times Square, but keep in mind that this is a very tiny portion of the overall race.  Most of the race is around hilly Central Park and the West Side Highway.  I guess I should have kept that in perspective.

It was fun running with Tom around Central Park and through Times Square, but next time I'm running West Side Highway by myself.  I started feeling funky (not in a happy dancy sort of way) and at that point I just wanted to get to the finish line.  Plus I tend to get a bit on the bitchy side whenever I'm racing.  Its that feeling of 'I need this race to be done'.

If you ever have a chance to run the NYC Half, do it!  Just don't build it up into something more than it should be. In the end, 13.1 miles is a far way to go.

Next up: Rutgers Unite Half Marathon