Halloween Halfathon Race Recap

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 I participated in another half marathon as part of my taper for the NYC Marathon.  Guess what, I PR'd but will get to that later.  I registered for the Halloween Half when it first opened and it was really cheap!  I knew for me, it would guarantee getting the miles in.  So, instead of doing 8 miles, I did 13.1.  Woops!

Saturday evening I was asleep before 10pm, but was up at 11:45 with a stomach ache, a throat that felt like there were shards of glass in it, a headache and my ears were killing me.  On top of that, my sister was in Hawaii with tsunami warnings.  She was texting frantically and freaking out.  It is safe to say this was going on till about 2:30.  The alarm was set for 4:10.  Guess who was not happy when that went off, guess who felt like death and didn't know if I was going to make it to run in the morning.  Luckily, I was meeting Meghan at 5:20!  I figured, if I still felt like crap, I would spectate or run the 5k. We met and headed straight to the race where we had to pickup our packet.  There I met up with Sarah and Brandi, used the restroom 2x (only #1), glided up, and was ready to GO!  It was so organized and we started right on time!  It was such a pleasure!  I loved the size of the race.  There were about 1000 participants!  We corralled by pace on our own.

Kitty Cat minus my ears post race

I went into this race with no expectations except two, to run slow and use this as a taper run, and make sure my first mile is not the fastest.  I definitely succeeded at the second goal.   The course was pancake flat.  The first has I was "flying", and it did not feel like it.  I didn't realize what I had in me.  I figured I had slowed down while training for this marathon as i did NO speed work.  I use the word flying loosely because for me, a 12 minute mile is good :)  By mile 8 I started to feel a little tired but kept on trekking along.  At mile 10, holy headwind.  This was the hardest I had worked all training season.  Because this was a taper, I took it easy, resistance training.  I haven't updated my Garmin yet so I do not have the race splits.  I do know I have as low at 11:04, very unlikely for me.  I do owe some of it to the cool, cloudy weather.  I am NOT complaining what so ever!  I stopped at every water stop for some gatorade and water.  I took a powergel at mile 6ish and probably should have taken one at mile 10.  By mile 12, I was ready to be done and stopped for water just so I can have a nice little walk break.

The coarse was beautiful and the spectators were great.  There were not much because this is a closed course along the beach so they were there cheering on their families.

I managed to pull off a PR during a taper run. WOOHOO.  I couldn't tell you my exact time becasue online it was about 2:36:XX which is the gun time, and being towards the back, I know it took at least a minute to get through.  My watch stopped 2x and at 12.87 is said 2:32:23 so I am going with about 2:35 leaving me a pace at 11:50!  That is a 4 minute PR.

This was a great race which I would do again next year.  There are many races at this park which I would look into as long as they go along with my training schedules.

Photo Credit Meghan

Thank you Sarah and Brandi for running with me for the first three miles!  It was great to have you as company!!  Thank you Tori for cheering me in :)