So excited to run the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Half Marathon! It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 60s and only a slight wind. The forecast had been calling for about 30% chance of rain, but that decreased to only a 9% chance by race day. Awesome!
So, here we all are waiting for the start. I am looking a little serious like I might be a contender of some kind ha ha. I always get so nervous before a race which really surprises me. Its not like I am going to win or anything. Or even place in my age group given how slow I have been running. So what is all the nerves about?? I guess just hoping nothing bad happens and I actually finish??
Anyway, I am getting some light stretching in while waiting for the start….
Wow! How quickly the mood changes, I am so happy to be running that I am actually airborne!! 🙂 
So we are off and running! I really tried hard not to get too caught up in going out too fast at the start. It is almost impossible to do! I looked at my watch as we started down the first hill and I was running under an 8:30 pace (I should be running closer to a 9 minute per mile pace based on my training). This is not a pace I will maintain, so I consciously tried to slow it down. Mile 1 was at an 8:31 pace. Isn’t it normal to justify why it is okay to run faster than you have trained for:
- It is a race!
- I feel really good, so might as well go for it!
- I have done speed work at this pace so it should be okay.
- Everybody goes out fast, that’s just how it is.
I should be thinking more about what is going to happen if I continue at this pace:
- The hills later in the race are going to be harder because I will be more tired.
- I may have to stop and walk part of the course if I continue at this pace.
- I may not finish!!
But, instead I just went with the pace because it actually did feel pretty comfortable.
And I actually continued at that pace (8:27-8:47) for the next 6 miles. I did slow down to an 8:47 around mile 3.5-4 because of a pretty significant hill that goes up to an area called Earthquake Park. The trail levels off a bit for about a little under a mile and then it is a gradual uphill for the next several miles. The turnaround point takes us down a trail from the main road back to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.
This crossover trail was really difficult and long! I thought it was going to be a short crossover, but it must have been at least a mile long! It was hilly, grassy, and uneven terrain. I slowed down quite a bit through that area- 9:41 pace. I was sooo glad to get off of that trail and hit asphalt again. I think I would have really enjoyed a trail like that any other day, but not in the middle of a race!
I continued on pace in the 8:30s until the trail heads up another pretty steep but relatively short hill near Point Woronzof-back to a 9:40 pace. And through rolling hills at 8:39-8:54 pace for a couple of miles. Then, it is all down hill and fairly flat for the next three miles in which I maintained an 8:24-8:38 pace. Once we hit Westchester Lagoon and headed back to the start/finish area which is pretty much all uphill, I really slowed down – 8:54 pace.
The hill at the very end was really tough! It doesn’t matter how steep the hill is or how long the incline, it is a hill at the end of the race!!! It’s going to be hard! And it is going to be especially hard if you ran the whole race faster than you should have ?. I managed it, but then the last 0.1 or so mile of the race was all grass. It was really weird. I hit that grass and all of a sudden my legs didn’t want to go. My feet felt like I was standing in quicksand! I was trying to sprint to the finish and my legs were saying – nope! Not happening! But somehow, I got to the finish line…..
In this finish line photo that my husband took, I look like uh-“where am I, which way do I go” ha ha
I was happy to be done. Funny how different the start photo and finish photo differ so drastically. Of course that is to be expected. If I finished looking too happy then others would think I didn’t push hard enough, so got to look the part he he.
And that Moose on the medal is the back of the medal 🙁
This is what it really looks like:
All in all, it was a challenging course but an awesome race! Loved it! I actually did this race way back in 1993. The start and finish have changed, but most of the course was the same. I did a little better way back then as far as time goes 🙂
That is me – Cathy Peterson-my name has changed since then 🙂 And it reads Half Marathon on the back of the medal.
I am not sure that I will ever get that fast again, but my goal is to break 1:50 in the half marathon one day!
I did run 7 minutes faster than my last half marathon. I ran the Skinny Raven half in 2:02 this past August which is a much flatter course. The difference this time is I used NYRR Virtual Trainer. This plan predicted a finish of 1:57 and geared my training towards that goal. And they were pretty much right on! I am using them again for the NYC Marathon training which starts today so got to get moving! This previous post also gives a little more information on the virtual trainer.
For more information about this race and a more accurate description of the course, click here.
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