Brooklyn Half Marathon

A kind of main race for the year but not really... but kind of.
I entered this race before I had fully committed to doing the marathon at Bear Mountain but then thought with all that training I could get away with doing very little in the two weeks following the marathon and have a crack at reducing my PB from 2013.

It hadn't gone wuite to plan in the build up. I had gotten the cold again two days before Bear Mountain and although it was just in my nose and didn't affect me that much during the race I was laid out for the two days following, even having to take a day off work on the Monday.

The race, the cold and bike to work month meant I biked the 14mile round trip 9 times in the two weeks but only managed three runs of 4-5 miles during which I felt pretty shit and heavy legged.

Race day night I decided to go for it from the start and see if marathon training could keep my form and legs going towards the end. I also decided it was easier for me to gently cycle the 1.5M to Grand Army, lock my bike and jog the other 3/4 mile to the wave 1 check in area for the 7am start!

With the size of event it was, 26,500 finishers, pretty much the largest half marathon in the states, you had to check in your bag, go through security then enter your coral where the toilets were (no outside toilets), then wait. I think partly for security and partly to get people into the corals early instead of them hanging about.

I got near the front of my coral and in the end I was standing beside the 1.20 pacer which was a bit too much as the gun went and they disappeared into the distance. Indeed, the 1.25 pacer went past and slowly pulled away which was a little disheartening as I was running strong for the first three miles with some good splits of 6.18, 6.17 and 6.05 heading into Prospect Park. A 5K split of 19.26 was a nice surprise as all I could remember from looking at 2013's even splits were they were around 21 minutes.

The start is nice and scenic, slightly downhill, slightly uphill, round Grand Army Plaza and back downhill and into Prospect Park.

Grand Army circle

The Brooklyn Library at Grand Army

Some good signs on the course again, didn't really see many as I was really concentrating on this one, ha ha.

Up the dreaded hill in the park, but with the downhill exit out of the park onto a dual carriageway road, Ocean Parkway, ALL the way down (6miles) to Coney Island.

Park entrance/exit

I passed through the 10K split just before exiting the park in 40.17.

Once on Ocean Parkway I was determined to not look at the Avenue roadsigns that basically count down from Avenue A all the way to Ave Z and try and just get into a focused straight line run aiming for 6.30 pace. At this point there is much more room to run so I moved out a little and just did my own thing.

Rocking the PPTC kit

6.25, 6.30, 6.22, 6.28, 6.32, catching the 1.25 pacer, now in sight but feeling really tired. The last mile was pretty tough. I just wanted it to be over at this point.
I didn't feel I was going any faster but managed a 6.17 split up onto the boardwalk and as the 1.25 mini group crossed the line I gave it everything and finished not too far behind them and cracked 1.25, taking nearly two minutes of my last time in 1.24.46.

The last few hundred metres on the boardwalk

Really struggling

Am I gonna puke??

380th place but 29th in my age group which was fairly decent I thought.

It had been a little humid during the race but a nice temperature. There had been a chance of rain and indeed just as I walked to get my bag it started to rain. By the time I got my bag I was fast walking to get some shelter as the heavens opened. The other runners and especially wave 2 which didn't start until 7.40am got drenched. Although the way the weather is here, by the time I got the train back to my bike it was around 24 degrees and bright sunshine.

The family meet up and post-race 'party' was inside the MCU Park (minor league baseball) stadium.
It looked like this when I entered to take a sneak inside.

And when I seen the pics from later it looked like this!

Took the train back to my bike, bought a danish pastry at the farmers market and enjoyed a leisurely cycle home. My legs are sorer then after Bear Mountain though, must be the roads!

The novelty of an empty train

The winner

Rock 'n' Roll

After last weekend's half marathon this Saturday it was the attempt at a sub-40 min 10K.

The (mildly overpriced but late substitution for the intended DC 10K) Rock 'n' Roll 10K in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. I got up in the dark around 6.20am for the early 7.30am start. I had decided to give baggage check a miss and just run over there ready to race in my kit with just a bottle of water in hand.

There was supposed to be around 7000 people so I thought things might be a bit hectic but I couldn't have been more wrong! In the end there were 'just' the 4111 finishers. I had the shortest line for a port-a-loo ever, probably because they had some beside the start as well as in the main gathering area where most of the other people were waiting. Then 15mins before the start I got into the coral to find much more space than a NYRR event and despite the 15 elite men and women at the very front I was in the second or third row of people from the start line!

There was a distinct lack of what I would say good club runners, a noticeable lack of running vests, more t-shirts, ha ha. I know the Staten Island Half Marathon was the following day and it is a NYRR qualifying event for the NY Marathon. Maybe people thought this was a slightly gimmicky event, I dunno.

I know the course like the back of my hand so set off fast knowing the slight uphill first mile was followed by a downhill 2nd and a flat 3rd and 4th. The 5th mile is a steady climb in the park, a killer hill for some people but the last mile is a gradual descent with the turn and last 1/4 mile to the finish.
Plus I'm getting used to going off faster than I ever used to, getting a better judge of pace too.

The weather was perfect. Ever so slightly cloudy, about 14 degrees with a mild breeze in places and because of the early start the sun didn't really come out until I was walking home.

My splits were about 6.32, 6.04, 6.09, 6.20, 6.45, 6.04, 1.13 for a finishing time of 39.12 (6.19 pace).
I finished in 36th place overall and when I logged in to see the results was pretty amazed to see I am apparently 2nd (out of 185) in the 40-44. The bad news was I was beaten by 1 second. ONE SECOND!!! According to the gun time he finished around 2mins behind me so it's not like I knew or we even sprinted it out or anything.

Good pic! Looking good... after 1.5M!

Not looking so good 30 secs after the finish

 The website says the marathon and half series they host give awards to the top 3 in each age group, by mail, 4-6 weeks after the event so fingers crossed they do it for the 10K too.
That would make the entry fee worth it, seeing as there wasn't even a bagel at the finish just bananas and apples and free chocolate milk. At least the t-shirt was a tech Brooks one albeit with an early 1990's style print.

So in the year of turning 40 that's a 10K PB (I've no idea how fast I ran as kid) to go along with PB's in the 5K, 10M and 1/2 Marathon. Very very mild disappointment at not cracking 39 now, or indeed being 2 seconds faster!

Next week is a cross-country 5K and then I'm taking it easy.

Outrun the Subway

Firstly, if you're a fan of Arrested Development then you'll be familiar with the frozen banana stand.... which turned up in a couple of city locations during its "world" tour while promoting the upcoming new Netflix series. We passed by for a snap, the line for posters and photo ops was literally round the block.

Okay. Now onto the main event, Saturday's Brooklyn Half Marathon.

Number pickup on Thurdsday was a great location for me. About 2miles from work on my regular run home over the Manhattan Bridge. I just did 3miles and came home. It was held in the shell of the old tobacco building right under the Brooklyn Bridge.

They gave it a typical Brooklyn flavour with next door having some food stands and music. If you don't know by now that involved cupcakes, tacos, pickles, popcorn and beer.

So how many early starts do I tend to mention here? This morning involved a 4.50am roll out of bed, porridge, bagel, juice and due to the layout of the subway and Prospect Park actually involved taking a taxi the couple of miles to the start area. We have a good taxi service and just called at 5.15am for a 5.30am pickup.

After the Boston Marathon bombings there was increased security and everything had to go in the clear bag they provided at registration and this was partially inspected with only people with race numbers allowed past a certain point. Unusually the port-a-loos were within the start corals and you were limited to using the ones in your coral only. I guess mainly for security but it actually made for shorter lines. The 45 minute wait in the start coral was alright as the weather was perfect for racing, about 15 degrees and only a 3mph wind.

The runners gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum and after a couple of miles loop, came back up around Grand Army Plaza, all the way back around the outside of the park, then into Prospect Park for one complete 3 mile loop before heading out onto Ocean Parkway and the near 6 mile long flat straight drag all the way down to the legendary boardwalk at Coney Island.

I knew the first half of the route like the back of my hand and paced myself just right. I had hoped to get under my 1 hour 30 min pb and although the training had gone really well for the trail half two weeks before, it's never easy knowing what to do in between two races like that and I'd only done a couple of short runs that week.

MarathonFoto.com

I was through the ten mile mark two minutes quicker than I'd actually ran for the DC 10 Miler race last October. I then managed to pick up the pace for the last two miles and the ramp at 13miles up onto the boardwalk for the often forgotten .1 mile was nice as it was all soft and springy underfoot.

I finished in 1:26:49 for 495th place out of an amazing 21, 378 finishers. This was the largest entry field in what was the 33rd running of the event. I averaged 6:38 min miles with a good last mile of 6:22! Pretty good even splits for 5K (21:02), 10K (21:04), 15K (20:07) and 20K (20:17). The first half did have the minor inclines and the short hill in the park.

MarathonFoto.com

The worst part was probably the descending the ten steep metal steps to the baggage area from the boardwalk, ooooh, my quads.

Luckily our F train runs right to Coney Island so it was a short walk to the train although any normal passengers probably got a slight shock to be in carriages full of smelly sweaty runners!
Again, there was weekend work at our stop so I had to get off at the next one and walk home. It's only an extra 5 minutes plus I was glad to walk and it enabled me to stop at the bakery for some Key Lime pie for later.

Mmmm, pie

No doubt, more race pics to follow.

So close yet so far

After the postponement of the Brooklyn Nets basketball first ever home regular season game during the week the rescheduled game went ahead on Saturday.

One of Heather's friends was coming into Brooklyn from New Jersey to see her and we went out for dinner. Her husband is French and his parents and cousin just happened to be visiting from France and they all had tickets for this game which was cheaper as it was against poorer opposition and would initially have been game two of the season so they got real lucky with that!
So we met her outside the stadium and in a funny situation I got to travel on a subway and stand outside while all the fans piled into the arena for the game.... while we met and went for a burger.

Then I got to stand outside the arena and watch the last minute of the game on the giant scoreboard which you can see from outside due the the sunken design of the court and see all the fans exit while we waited for her family to come out.

They all had their "I was there for opening night" t-shirts on and I got to see the issue No.1 Marvel comic style programme before handing it back :-(

Pretty cool but kinda disappointing to be so close to this (I'm guessing) historic action but yet to be standing literally watching from the outside!

Hurricane Sandy

Well, that passed through then! Luckily where we are situated, at just about the tallest point in Brooklyn, we were never going to be at risk from any flooding. Although we just had to wait and see as regards power and water and INTERNET. Oh my god, the internet!

Heather has been through a couple of real bad storms while living on Hawaii but I had no clue what to expect. I ventured out on Sunday to grab a couple of extra things like some matches and bread and water, etc. I would have got more but the lines in the local stores put me off!

It started off with the wind just building later on during the day but already people were posting pictures of trees downed in the neighbourhood.

This was about ten hours before the hurricane was even scheduled to hit land!
But it was Monday that it was supposed to get a lot worse. Luckily we have a new couch to "hunker down" on, that seemed to be the phrase of the day everywhere I looked.

But apart from a few flickering lights and our four storey building swaying a little when the wind picked up, we were very lucky. Some of Heather's friends all over the city didn't have it so good. A couple had their homes flooded and others lost power.

We followed the news on television, and Twitter was really good for getting instant updates especially around Brooklyn. We watched the video and seen the pictures of the power transformer thing blowing up in midtown Manhattan.

That caused practically the whole of lower Manhattan to go dark. From about 34th street downwards. So I jumped off the couch and looked out our window to see, it was a bit freaky to see as normally there are obviously so many lights from the buildings in the distance.

Not our photo, but gives you an idea of what it looked like from even closer.
The stories on the news about the water levels were weird because we could see that it wasn't exactly pouring rain outside so it's freaky to think of the hurricane winds combined with a full moon/high tide pushing the water in from so far off the coast.

To see pictures of places I know so well gave me an instant picture of how far in the water was coming. This was the carousel I've pictured before, down by Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Just before bed we looked out the side window to see the sky lit up similar to the video of the transformer blowing up, it looked like sheet lightning that was permanently on for a minute. There is a power station of some kind a few blocks away so I don't know what that powers?

This morning we seen the news pictures of the houses destroyed by fire and the tunnels filled with water and felt extremely fortunate to escape so relatively untouched.

See the height sign!

We went out this morning for a walk and there were a lot of businesses open. I guess unlike for Manhattan stores, a lot of people here live locally. It did have a slight feel of Christmas or New Year about it, with people happy to get out of the house for a walk and some fresh air. Plus like us people obviously wanted to see the damage done!
Apart from a lot of bits of trees on the pavement and some shops missing their awnings it seemed okay. There were a couple of downed trees on cars and up at Prospect Park there was a big clean up operation going on.

Then of course, the subways are closed. Because of that, like a lot of people Heather is off work and the MTA aren't sure yet when things are likely to reopen. The New York City Marathon is this coming weekend and I wanted to go to the Marathon Expo this week, partly out of interest and partly I was trying to get some work there. At least I'm not one of the thousands of runners attempting to travel to the city to take part.

Brooklyn's finest

In my pursuit of my work permit I was told by the USCIS that I could get back in touch 75 days after the application was received in order for them to chase it up, so to speak.
Of course, the average processing time according to their website is currently around 90 days and when I called earlier this week they gave me another code/number and said they'd look into it and to please allow up to 15 days for them to do this. Thus taking it up to the 90 days anyway!

Last night we went to one of the eight sold out Jay-Z concerts taking place at the brand new Barclays Centre. The novelty factor was for once it's under 2.5miles from us and I love sports arenas anyway!

There has been the usual controversy about the arena being built in the first place and what it has done, or was supposed to have done for the area. Lots of stories involving the developer, the Russian billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team that have moved from New Jersey and some good publicity from co-owner and local boy Jay-Z.

It marks the return of major league sports to Brooklyn, which has been absent since the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team to Los Angeles in 1957. Their old Ebbet's Field Stadium used to be in the same neighbourhood and the Jay-Z intro was pretty cool with a massive projection onto the stage of this and all the people that came from Brooklyn.



All the food concessions come from local Brooklyn restaurants so we shared a pulled pork sandwich from the Fatty Cue stand. I think I've said before, but that's one thing that is definitely better than back home, I don't know why they don't make a bigger deal of the food on offer at UK stadiums.
They even had a little Brooklyn Farmacy (the soda fountain place we went to a few weeks ago) cart in case you fancied a coke float!

The tickets only cost $30 and we were seated about three rows from the very very top. Plus it has those real steeply banked stands so you don't want to sit there if you suffer from vertigo!
Like flying above the clouds, we were so high we were above the lights, ha ha:

I didn't know all the songs he played, unlike probably 90% of the crowd but it was still really good. Still find it funny to see people sparking up a joint at a show like this. Heather did comment that it was probably the most mixed types and ages of people at a gig ever.

Saturday walk and eat

Happy Birthday to me!
One of Heather's cousins is in New York for work and it was also her birthday during this time so we got a combined Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake, yum yum!

Plus we got to take her and her husband on a couple of guided tours during their stay. We went back to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and then had a long walk around Brooklyn.

 

Lunch was the amazing burgers at Shake Shack and then we had a late afternoon snack in the Brooklyn Farmacy, an old school ice cream parlour & soda fountain.

I'd read about this Italian bakery that sells something called Lard Bread so our last stop was to try that out. It was fantastic although it's just as well we don't live next door as I'd find it hard to resist. It is a loaf of bread with salami and cheese baked in.

Turned out we walked nearly 10 Miles from around 9am to 5pm. If you visit New York, be prepared to walk! At least it burned off a lot of the above calories that were ingested during the day.
Plus I'd definitely recommend visiting in September. The humidity has finally disappeared and there's not the need for a shower every time you step out the door.