A Tale of Two Half-Marathons: Airbnb Brooklyn Half Marathon, New York City

Brooklyn Half is a big one. It is featured in many bucket lists.  The largest half-marathon in the US and extremely popular, the race this year was sold out in just 52 minutes after registration opened! More than 27000 runners pounded their way along the course from Brooklyn Museum on a round of Prospect Park and then straight down all the way to Coney Island finishing on the boardwalk.

Now that I've check it off, I don't think I will be doing it again as the race logistics turned out to be most inconvenient for me.  Packet pickup was not available on race day. It had to be picked up on a week day in Brooklyn.  Since it was very inconvenient for me to make a trip to the city on a week day I had decided to skip the race. However, a friend working in Manhattan took the trouble to spend a few hours after work and picked up the race material for me. That's not all. Next challenge was to get to the starting point in Brooklyn before six in the morning. Race organizers New York Road Runners had recommended public transport and strongly cautioned runners about the scarcity of parking spots. However, there was no public transport available, either train or bus, that would take me from Morris Plains/Parsippany to Brooklyn by 6 AM. So my only option was to drive.  It also meant I needed to wake up at 3 AM which in turn meant very short sleep the previous night.  I don't want to rant more about this, but just want to say that the entire episode in the morning before the race and later the trip back from the finish point after the race was very painful and is not something I would want to do again.

The race itself wasn't bad, except for the mess I got myself into during the race - but I finished and did that within my normal finish time.  The organizers had done an excellent job. The security check was very much more strict this time. It was almost like going through an airport security checkpoint with security personnel scanning everyone and no bags allowed to the start corrals. That meant I had to throw out some bananas as I could only eat so many. There was still one hour left (7 AM start for my wave - wave 1). So I took the water bottle with me and decided to take an energy gel instead of the banana about 15 minutes before start.

Next one hour was just a long wait.  I saw the 1:50 pacer and took position keeping some distance behind him as that time would be too fast for me.  The course was advertised as a fast course, but I knew I wouldn't be that fast.  After my turn in the bathroom there was still about 45 minutes before the start. So I decided to give some rest to my legs and sat on the curb like some other folks around. Pretty soon I found that the curb seating was getting filled and the rest of the folks were leaning against trees or simply squatting on the road which formed the start corral.

The race started dot on time. Weather was very nice - I think it was low 60's F and overcast with only an occasional mild breeze.  The first couple miles had many twists and turns through the streets of Brooklyn. What struck me was the pace with which the crowd was moving on the mostly downhill first couple of miles.  I felt great and I was running faster than my normal pace also.  Unfortunately, in the morning hurry I had forgotten to take my Garmin watch so I had to depend on the clocks along the mile markers. I covered the first 5K in about 26 minutes which is way faster than my normal time, but then I thought this may be the reason why this course is billed as a fast course.  There was a little voice in my head that kept telling me to be cautious and conservative. And I do recall looking for the elevation profile of the course and I could swear that the course map didn't have it which was very unlike other NYRR course maps.  Once we entered Prospect Park there were a few uphills but I kept at it. I later found that I crossed the 10K marker in about 54 minutes which is a very good 10K race time for me. The problem was this was not a 10K race but the first 10K split for a half-marathon. I asked a fellow runner who appeared to be familiar with the area how much more of these ups and downs we need to deal with and he more or less dismissively said that it was mostly downhill all the way to Coney Island. Eventually the hilly part of the course ended and we were on a straight road.  I must grant that the course was nice and there was lot of crowd support as well.  There were bands playing on the side and a lot of people holding banners and placards with funny and motivating messages.  

Once on the straight road I noticed a senior woman runner looking somewhat weak and chanting something continuously.. She was moving at a steady pace and as I was passing her heard the
words "One more time... Just one more time..." I was humbled by her determination. This race must mean a lot to her.  She may have been running the Brooklyn Half for a long time and she probably has a lot of history with this race. Her face and her running reminded me of NYRR's legendary co-founder and NYC Marathon race director Fred Lebow's last marathon when he was suffering from cancer. Fred's life and passion and the story of New York City Marathon is nicely captured in the documentary Run for Your Life.

The crowd on both sides were cheering us and I kept at the same effort level. Now taking a swig at my bottles almost every mile. I was also making sure to refuel every 30 minutes or so.  After about 10 miles I felt the fast pace in the initial stages were catching up with me. I was breathing harder and things seemed to take effort, but that is okay, I was used to somewhat hard effort albeit not recently, but before my December injury.  By then we had entered Coney Island. A uniformed police officer controlling the crowd shouted "Welcome to Coney Island".  There were a bunch of people waving the "big hand" at us.. I swiftly moved towards them and hit each one of those hands and the crowd loved it. A bearded young man cheered me "You are looking great.. you are looking great."  which was an indication that I was looking the way I was feeling.. T-I-R-E-D.  I could feel my legs were feeling tired, especially my quads and sides of the upper thighs were feeling heavier perhaps due to the long downhill and also due to the fast pace I was at for the first half.  Anyway, I labored my way through.  By now instead of taking my own drink I had started grabbing the Gatorade endurance from the fluid stations. It certainly seemed to give a boost of energy than my regular Gatorade.. So I kept grabbing a cup or two from the fluid stations on the go without stopping.

The course was downhill all along Coney Island, but unfortunately, it was also turning downhill for how I was feeling.  Around mile 12 or 13 I started feeling cramps on my right upper calf.  I tried to run giving it some stretch while running but that didn't work. So I had to stop on the side and stretch for a little while. Once it felt better I started running making sure I am not running too hard, but after a little while the one that was troubling me and the other calf both started getting cramps. I again pulled over and spent some time stretching both my calves against the curb.  Once it felt better I ran the rest of the distance slowly. After crossing the finish line I checked into the huge medical tent - a first time for me. To my surprise there were a lot of runners getting attended to.  The tent was very well staffed. I was greeted by a volunteer right at the entrance and I explained to her that I felt cramps on both my calves in the last mile or two and if there was something they could do about it - I was fine to walk though. She immediately connected me with a young doctor Roger who checked things out and wrapped ice packs around my calves. He said I could walk around with the ice packs if I felt comfortable.  It felt perfectly fine.

I am not entirely sure if I can isolate a single factor for this - whether it is the lack of sleep the previous night, or the somewhat warmer temperature in the second half of the race - at least warmer than I had been used to thus far this year, the long downhill second half of the course, or it was my foolish running in the early part of the race.  Perhaps all of them had some role to play, but I think the biggest is probably my harder running in the first half and the fact that I was blind sided by the uphills and downhills in the first 6 or 7 miles.  Anyway, lesson learned. It is a lesson for other races however, as I don't think I am going to sign up for the Brooklyn Half for the reasons I explained earlier.  I am not entirely disappointed with my time of 1:57:06  or 8:56 per mile.  This is not my fastest time, but not my worst either.






Well, everything is well that ends well, right?

Don't give up. Keep at it.

If I can run, u can run