No Sleep Til...

Saturday morning was the Brooklyn Half Marathon.  It started at 7 which was a bit difficult logistically because who wants to watch my kids starting at 5:45 am.  Oh wait, my sister does.  Well, she agreed to do it for me because she rocks!  (Thanks Lisa!)

Nurys and I pre-race @ Brooklyn Museum

My friend Nurys and I were running this one together and the original goal was to beat last year's time from this race, which was a PR (personal record).  The best part of that was that neither one of us was exactly sure what it was.  Bad Runners!  We knew it is was 2 hours and a few minutes.  At some point, whether spoken or not, the goal became to break the 2 hour mark.  I think that I am going to blame this one on the all the speedy bloggers I read about every day.  I won't name names (but you know who you are), but I spend days on end reading about 8:30 miles, etc.  That said, we went out fast.  I have yet to download the Garmin but it was definitely too fast for us.  We were only 2-3 miles in and I knew it was going to be tough to keep up the speed.  I also knew that we wanted to PR.  So I was giving it everything I had.  It felt so much different than most of my past races.  I am usually social and talkative.  I try to keep a good speed but also enjoy myself.  As we left Prospect Park near the halfway mark, I knew it was going to be a challenge to keep the pace for the second half.

We finally made our way to Ocean Parkway which is straight flat course... in the sun.  I think it was between mile 8-9 that Nurys told me that her leg was numb.  I joked that at least she didn't feel any pain.  The joke was on us about a mile later when she did start to feel the pain.  There was a point when I said that we would need  to reevaluate our goal if she needed to slow down.  Well, that's what I meant to say.  I am pretty sure that what I did say was closer to - you are ruining our PR if we slow down now.  Well, it was an awkward next few miles of silence and tension as our pace slowed by as much as a minute.  She would take walk breaks and I would slow to a really slow jog to wait for her.  As some points, I tried to walk to wait for her but my legs do not do well when they stop and go too much.

Well, we finished the race in 2:11:48, which is obviously not sub-2 hours and not faster than last year's 2:08:08 (which I looked up this morning.)  Post-race we each apologized and headed to brunch (aka breakfast  + liquor).  Over egg white omlettes, mimosas and screwdrivers, we discussed the lessons we learned from this race.  Here's the list plus a few I thought about throughout the rest of the weekend.

Post-Race in Coney Island

Brooklyn Half Marathon Takeaways 2012

1. Skip leg weights and kickboxing in the days before a desired PR.
2. Know your PR.  I mean, c'mon it's an accomplishment. You should know it like your kids' names.
3. Know the course in advance.
4. Set a clear goal. Once you set a goal, know the pace you need to achieve it.
5. Have a Plan B.
6. Don't say what you think to your friend when you are running on empty.  You might hurt someone's feelings.
7. Running with someone when you are clearly pissed at each other sucks (See #6.)
8. Slow down if you are going all out at mile 3 and still have 10 miles to go.  (This one is for me. Some of you are cool enough to do this for 13 miles.)
9. Mimosas are best after 13 miles.

The rest of the weekend was productive and restful.  Park with the kids, visit with family, laundry and 4 bags of old clothes out of the house.  This week hubby is opening the pool.  Bring on Summer 2012!

Do you know your PRs?  Do you know your kids names?  What have you learned from mistakes prepping for and running a race?