mission: brooklyn half marathon

this morning i woke up to the sound of my alarm at 4:30, and yes it was still dark. the phrase, 5 more minutes, was in my head hoping i would return to my slumber, and therefore miss my half marathon. however, i sluggishly forced my body to sit up, slip out of bed, and feet hit the floor to begin my day.

i began to wonder, how did i get myself into this mess? can i really run 13.1 miles? let's go back a couple of months. many of you may remember my quest to find new and interesting things to do in nyc, things you would like me to write about on my blog. a few suggestions were given to me, but only one challenge was placed before my life that would test my physical abilities of running. seth baruffi told me he wanted me to participate in the nyc half marathon. may i inform you, reader, that i only started to really run last summer. sure, i had a few bouts of it here and there, but i became more serious about it due to my sister getting married, and i wanted to be in shape for her wedding. anyway, i took on the challenge, but realized that the nyc half had already closed it's registration, and i thought it was too soon anyway to really train for it. so then i saw that the brooklyn half was beginning the registration process, and so i signed up along with patrick and my friends sarah and michael weissman.

thus, my training began. i had a new gym membership and spring was beginning to show it's face so that i could take long runs outside on the weekends. it was a tough 8 weeks, but it proved to do it's job. i could say, if only i had another month i could have done better. and be that as it may, i was still running the half marathon today four weeks shy of a more prepared body.

and that leads me up to this morning. patrick and i had planned out how to get to prospect park, which is located in the middle of brooklyn and was the start of our race. we were to meet up with sarah and michael at the baggage area to drop off our stuff, get our racing numbers that michael had picked up for us, and just wait in our corral until the race began. this became somewhat of a difficult task because there were no signs for the baggage area at the place where we entered the park. patrick asked one of the volunteers where it was, and she pointed us in the general direction. once we got to the supposed place, they said it was a mile away. this was only 10 minutes before the race began, and i began to freak! another mile? i can't go another mile out of my way when i have 13 in front of me. patrick suggested we jog over to the corrals and forget baggage to find our friends, and so i started to do so, even though i didn't want to. but then i stopped and began hyperventilating and was on the verge of tears. i was pissed and felt like i really couldn't do this thing. finally, we caught up with the weissmans, and as michael went his way (he is a MUCH faster runner than the rest of us, so he went to catch up with his group) we walked and talked until the starting line.

patrick went ahead of us ladies, but sarah and i were committed to being with each other the entire time, no matter how fast or slow we needed to go. so our first 7 miles were in the park, and we had to loop around twice before leaving. the two of us were feeling pretty good the entire time we ran this section of the race. there was one killer hill we had to attempt to run up, and we did quite well the first time, but the second time we ended up walking a section of it. it was just too much and we didn't want to over exert ourselves at mile 4! after leaving the park, feeling good and feeling strong, we then had to run along ocean parkway. they shut down the highway just for us runners, and it was pretty cool! especially running down the exit ramp.

around mile 9, sarah and i had to begin walking frequently. it was getting hard and our bodies were really feeling it. i kept encouraging sarah to keep going, and so we set up our pace again until mile 10. this continued, the walking/somewhat jogging through mile 11. we kept seeing that our pace was still pretty good according to the race clocks, and we listened to our bodies' need for a little rest until about 3/4 of the way through mile 11. i kept pushing sarah saying that we only had about 11 minutes left of the race, and we had to finish this thing strong. so at the over pass right before the curve to run along the boardwalk, we picked up our pace through mile 12. i was feeling good again, and in my mind i told myself that i had to end this thing running, no matter what. once the two of us got onto the boardwalk, the adrenaline kicked in again, giving us the momentum to run the rest of the race. people were cheering us on and music was blaring inspirational tunes. that soon faded, until i saw the 13 mile marker. i was speeding up, smiling my way to the finish line. sarah and i decided to hold our hands high in the air as we finished our race. we heard our names being announced, i let out a wooooooot, and i never felt better about myself for being able to do this!

bagels and gatorade were given at to us as a way to keep the runners from passing out. i ate it with joy in my heart and pain in my knees. thank you to seth for this challenge! he is overseas serving our country, and so i dedicate my run to him, his family, and all of our troops out there who have to run in the heat of the desert just to keep us safe back home. thanks to sarah for being my running buddy, i could not have done this without you! and thanks to patrick and michael who supported us through this every step of the way.

this is beth signing off.

mission: accomplishment above all others!

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