I had so much fun yesterday running the NYC Half Marathon! While I run a lot, and my base mileage is pretty solid, I ran this one for fun. As soon as I found out we would be running through a closed-off Times Square, I wanted in!
It was an absolutely perfect day for running. Sunny, crisp, cool, and the atmosphere was great. NYRR races are always well-organized and fun, but this one was even better.
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| That’s me at the 8-mile mark! |
I loved the way the course was set up. The first 8 miles are run in Central Park, which is beautiful, though hilly. I came out of the park, and started running down an empty Seventh Avenue. What a rush! Seeing the familiar midtown buildings without the normal weekday craziness was amazing, and running down the middle of the road made it that much cooler. Times Square without traffic and tourists (well, not many, anyway) was bizarre. So by the time I took all of that in, I was already at 10 miles, and knew the last 3.1 was going to be fast and flat down the west side.
Half-marathons are my favorite distance. It’s not so crazy-long that you have to devote a lot of your life to training for it, but it’s not a distance to take lightly. It’s just long enough that you feel how hard your body has been working when you cross the finish line.
