Waiting on NYM reports

Michele, Steven?  Saw your times, would like to hear the story.  Who else ran?

Jerry.  It was very, very windy.

Well, it was very windy, certainly cost me most of my goal.
Not sure how I really feel about my race, part disappointed, part "well that's a decent result, all things considered." Feels weird to be let down by a 2:50:22, but...
More to come...

Gobbles wrote:Well, it was very windy, certainly cost me most of my goal.
Not sure how I really feel about my race, part disappointed, part "well that's a decent result, all things considered." Feels weird to be let down by a 2:50:22, but...
More to come...

Yeah, it is hard for me to relate to that.

New York, New York...   

So New York was my Originally my target race for the fall, then my heel wasn't getting better after significantly reducing mileage and taking time off.  After getting a diagnosis on the issue, significant scar tissue in both calves, and actionable treatment advice (Massage, rolling, painful manual breaking up of the scar tissue), I was quickly able to increase my mileage and was able to get about 8 weeks of solid training in.  I raced all but one weekend since the weekend before Labor Day.  Progressive improving, even if not a 100% effort.  At about 3 weeks out, I felt I was in good enough shape to run a solid race in New York, so I started to Taper.

As the race weather started to come into focus, one thing became evident, there would be wind!!!  I had some doubts about racing, but decided to keep tapering.  

I took a private coach (with a flush toilet) to the start, so I didn't have to live in the start village.  I selected no baggage, and walked to my start corral Blue 1A about 10 mins before they closed the corrals.  Only to find that, unlike the other corrals I passed, we did not porta-potties in our corral.  Seems C and back did, but A and B didn't.  Well the bushes along the fence got well watered.

Due to issues (related to the wind), they didn't march us to the start line until right before the start.  I wasn't right at the front, but close enough to see the elites.   After introducing the elites twice, the first being botched a bit, the gun went off.

As I hit the start line, I pushed start on my Garmin Fenix 2 and it crashes, requiring a restart.  Now I'm angry, and the race just started.  I had debated for days whether to trust the watch, which has issues about 15% of the time or not.  I elected to use the Fenix over my trusty 610 - So now I'm very angry with myself.  So I start running, while trying to restart my watch.
I get my watch restarted, and they run into a wall of people jogging at about 12 min pace, about 1/4 of the way up the Verrazano they had "NYRR Run for Life", already in a bad mood, I have a WTF moment as people start pushing me in the back, not seeing the people right in front of me.  So now I'm pissed, completely off my nice and easy, be cool race plan.  I get around the people, about on pace, but wasting much more energy that I had planned.

I got blow around like a rag doll on the Verrazano sometimes moving over 2~3 with the gusts, and constantly kicking myself.  I run down the Verrazano, right around 5:40/mile, right within my pace plan.  I'm already finding myself without any wind protection or anyone who I could see sharing the work for the next 24 miles.  I'm already feeling my pirformis that has been sore, but not inhibiting me by the 5K mark.  By about 10 miles, my right foot goes numb - I stepped on a rock about 1.5 weeks ago, and had been dealing with pain and numbing in my forefoot.

My attitude continues to worsen.  I'm constantly annoyed by the wind, especially the gusts.  The Queensborough Bridge was an annoying wind tunnel with a climb...  The wonder of running through the Orthodox Jewish section was the only distraction from my attitude until ~mile 16 when this guy keep clipping my feet, I give him the stare of death after multiple clips.  I started varying my pace to drop him, that didn't work, so I finally stutter stepped and let him run into me.  He finally stopped, and passed me.

I shortly realized, even with my attitude, I'm really not that far off pace; so over the next mile, I go from a terrible mood to an almost good mood.  At least as good as I can expect at 18 miles into a marathon.

I'm pretty fatigued but not nutritionally bonking, so I just keep trying to hang on until I get the tail wind that the weather guy promised.  But as Deena Kastor put it:
“It wasn't just a constant in-your-face wind,” she said. “It was swirling around you, and you were clipping your heels because of it. It was warmer when he got outside of the [shadow of] the buildings.” But the wind wasn’t helpful at any time, she said."

I get to about 22 miles, and realize I'm not going to get a tailwind.  I'm buoyed by the fact that I'm passing people, quite a few people; in fact, I only see two people pass me in the last few miles, they were running great races.  I know I'm off pace, but not crashing.  I realize my B goal is going to be missed at about 24 miles, but if I hold it together it will still be an OK result.  I hold it together coming in at 2:50:22, not what I wanted but what I did.

Overall	291
Gender	269
Age Group	55
5 km	0:19:31
10 km	0:39:09
15 km	0:58:39
20 km	1:18:29
13.1 mi	1:22:53
25 km	1:39:12
30 km	1:59:24
35 km	2:20:32
40 km	2:41:30
Finish	2:50:22
Pace:	6:30

Kinda indifferent about the race.  It's a slight PR, 20 seconds, but I hoped for more.

Had a great time out on the town Sunday Night.
Friends met me at my hotel where we had some Brooklyn Lagers  
Then off to McSorley's Old Ale House (Two choice of Beer) Light or Dark Pub Ale.  
Next we went to John's of Bleecker Street for Pizza.
After that we crossed the street to the Blind Tiger, a great beer bar I had read about.  Had a great Cask Double Imperial IPA.
Fun trip.  (Sorry about the Typos, maybe I'll fix them later.)

I enjoyed the report.  Good run.  You can't be too disappointed with a PR.  Someday I'll have to do NY, but glad it wasn't this yr.  Not a big fan of the wind.

You touched on the thing I hate about big races, Gobbles - so many people, so little awareness of each other.  I understand getting thrown off your game by the bumps and other unwelcomed "interactions."  It may not be what you were in shape for, but a PR under those conditions is definitely a promising result.

Good race, Steven.  And with the exception of your description (and Deena's) of the wind, my race was much more enjoyable than yours.  I'll put my report up in a bit as I am writing it now.

Steven...can't believe you were able to hold yourself together and pull off the results that you did. The weather would have been enough to throw most people off but that combined with the other frustrations would have been disaster for most. Congrats on a very nice run in very tough conditions!

Taking the whole context into consideration, you did great!

Tough conditions, dealing with the injury and you still PR'd. Congrats.