John on the West Side Highway - only 4 more miles to go

After months of training, miles and miles of running, getting sore knees from running with the wrong shoes then spending lots of money on buying new shoes, blisters, cramps, feelings of terrible guilt because I couldn’t get myself out of bed to actually go for that early run, and a lot of carbo loading, we finally did it! The New York Half Marathon is one of the things on my ‘list of things to do’ that I can now safely mark as: Ticked!

After falling ill on Monday last week and eventually spending Friday last week in bed with the most terrible summer cold, my forecast on being able to run was not looking too positive. But I’m a firm believer in ‘Whatever The Mind Can Conceive And Believe It Can Achieve’ and this was put into true practice when I woke up pretty much symptom-free on Saturday morning – the day before the race. I was overjoyed and slightly apprehensive as John and I took our bicycles on a downtown trip in the summer heat, with me checking in with the thumping heart on a regular basis to make sure that it was not failing me. Nope, heart was fine, nose was not too blocked and race was a go.

After two brunches (yes, you read that right, two brunches, at two different restaurants!), we cycled back Uptown and had a lazy sleep, followed by an impromptu dinner party with Rose, Annie and Sam joining us for mounds and mounds of spaghetti bolognaise. Nothing like being forced to eat all those carbs we usually avoid, right? It was great.

Off to an early night of tossing and turning where none of us slept too well (nerves?) and then, all too soon, the alarm went off at 5.15. I jumped out of bed, got dressed after ‘lubing’ my chafing areas and prepared bagels (more carbo loading), pinned our race numbers to our running gear, ensured that satellite connectors were on the right shoes and then we headed out into the humid air. By the time we arrived at our assigned stanchions at around 6.30am, I was already sweating. It was clearly going to be a hot one!

As we waited around for the 7am arm to move into place, the tension started mounting. Rose and I had agreed to run together and I had never been more thankful for having a running partner with me. In between nervous giggles, African bird signalling and some half-hearted stretches, we managed to make it to 7am and finally the shot announced the start of the New York Half Marathon! We were off…on a slow start! I wish I had a camera with me to capture the 10,000 people all starting the race – it looked kind of like a Mexican Wave – the front runners would start bopping up and down and in a wave the ones behind them and then the ones behind them and so forth, til finally it was our turn to start running – what a magical sight!

Two hours and fifteen minutes later we crossed the finish line – drenched to the bone, with aching muscles and the widest grins on our faces you can possibly imagine. John had been done for quite a while (naturally Mr Athletic completed the entire race in 1hr 45mins!) and I think I finally hit that elusive ‘Runner’s High’ when we crossed the finish line! Wow – what a feeling!  We ran around the entire Central Park and then down to the bottom of it, out onto Madison Avenue and straight down through Times Square. Nothing I have ever done can compare to running through Times Square with no pedestrians, no cars, just loads of supporters, singers, a huge karaoke band (Rose and I did a little jig-n-run as we passed the stage) and all those lights. It was pure magic.

Over the course of the 21.1kilometers there were about 11 watering holes where we stopped for Gatorade, energy bites and water, water, water. Another highlight was getting ‘hosed down’ by the randomly placed ‘fountains’ (volunteers holding huge hoses with sprayers attached that went a long way towards cooling down the overheated runners) – by the end of the run Rose and I were both soaked. Sweat or water? Probably a little combination of both.

Would I do it again? Mmmmmm…not so sure about that. But this one, at least, was pure magic!