Don't Try This At Home

Brian H.

I never knew how crazy I was until yesterday...

What seemed like a great plan turned ugly...It made me realize that I pushed my body to its very limits through running (“...and what is wrong with that?”, you might ask.)

As many of you know, I am one of the coaches for Team for Kids (part of the NYRR Youth Services) for the New York City Marathon, and today was our first 20-mile training run.  The course was to start in Brooklyn and run up the West Side Highway to the Little Red Lighthouse and back down to 72nd Street.  Pretty simple, right?
Since today was the Fitness 4 mile race and it was a points race, I decided to do both the 20 miler and the race, which meant pacing a group and then racing up to the race and then coming back to make sure everyone was OK at the end of their 20 miler...

The Race:

It was an absolutely perfect day to run, as the fall weather seems to be right around the corner, with cool mornings and sunny afternoons ahead.  Perfect for any runner!

Unfortunately, I didn't arrive on time. In fact, I was at least 5 or 10 minutes late to the race. I crossed the starting line by dragging my D-Tag across the starting mat by hand and then putting it on my shoe, while Mr. G, the weatherman and a very good friend of mine, remarked: "Next time you should remember when the start time of the race is!” I yelled back that I was busy coaching. He didn’t know I had already ran 12 miles and raced to get up to the starting line, let alone the race itself!  But I thought it was very funny!

I was the very last person to start and tried to catch up slowly. Person by person, I managed to wiggle my way around, closer to the front of the pack. One thing I did notice while running was that there were a few women running in the men's race? What was the deal with that? Did they have somewhere to go so they had the option of running with the males?  It would be worse if guys ran with the ladies, right?

Anthony P., running the Fitness 4 Mile!

When I finished the race, I saw that there were not many Flyers out on the course. Later, I found that ONLY 23 of our guys ran the race! Fortunately, there was a good turnout for the women, with 41 Flyers in that group. It's a points race guys! Let's go!

On the other hand, I can hardly blame them. Fall Marathons are in the mix, and everyone is busy running their 18-20 milers, depending on which marathon you are running and where you are in your training schedule.

I snapped a few pictures of a few good men that I saw at the finish line and moved on and went back to the west side highway to do my coaching duties...

Amy M. takes advantage of great racing weather!

I'll spare you the rest of the details as I saw many of the TFK members roll on by finishing their 20 milers (some of them - their first!).  All of them smiling, giddy, and happy that they all got back to home base, running a ton of miles.

Take your own trip down memory lane and remember your first 20-mile training run and your very first marathon. Quite an accomplishment!

Good luck to all you Fall marathoners and let's see all of you people out during the remaining points races (3 left in the year!). Thanks, and congrats to all who did run today! - Brian H.