The New York City Half Marathon: A Great Day In Running!

The weather gods were smiling down on the NYC Half-Marathon as it enjoyed its debut as a spring half-marathon instead of a summer half-marathon. The temperature was a comfortable 53 degrees, the sun was shining enough to be cheerful but not too bright, and over 11,000 people were ready to run at the early hour of 7:35am on Sunday morning. The field included several pro runners, local runners, more out of town runners than the typical Road Runners race, and of course many, many Flyers.

The course started out on the East Side of the park near 95th St., then took runners on a clockwise loop of the park plus an additional two miles before the exit onto 7th avenue. You could feel and hear the excitement as the course left the park because the hardest part of the race was over and it was time to enter the part of the course with all the entertainment and the part that was something different than regular loops of the park. The course then gave runners a chance to run down south through Times Square before heading west to go down the West Side Highway where almost at the end of the race at Canal St was the Flyers hydration station, which was great fun to pass.

Mara Yamauchi set an event record for the women with a time of 1:09:25 and Peter Kamais, the men’s winner, finished with a time of 0:59:53. The favorable conditions made it a great day for PRs all around and many Flyers set PRs. Despite having run several marathons, this was my first half-marathon so I guess the jury is out for if it was a PR for me. Is the first race you do of a certain distance an automatic PR or is it just a benchmark? Nevertheless, I had a fantastic time.

Congratulations to all the Flyers who ran the race and thank you to all the Flyers who were at the water station, cheering elsewhere along the course, and the Flyers running the race who cheered for me on the course! You were amazing! - Celia K.

Julie C. gets some refreshment at our Flyer-run water station in the last stretch of the race.