The Sweet Smell of Redemption

First and foremost Happy New Year to all of my readers. I know 2016 was a struggle at least for me, but we made it to 2017.

As you know I spent the first post mainly spewing out my grievances with most of the races I ran during the second half of 2016, but there is redemption in the air. I kept this important detail under wraps, but I have spent most of the past week moving out of my tiny apt in Albany at the magic sinkhole spot and over to Troy. Of course no move in the history of mankind has even gone smoothly, but I was able to finish it up mostly by Saturday.

Saturday was new years eve and almost everyone on planet earth was out there partying, sipping champagne, kissing their sweety etc... Not me, I had an important date New Years day at noon, the Hangover Half marathon. This meant no libations, no staying up late... This race not only represented a fresh start, but also the beginning of my journey to Boston. It was critical to me to get a good start to this cycle to erase the bitter taste of Hartford from my being.

I had no idea what was going to happen going into this race. As I said earlier, I spent Wed-Sat moving all of my stuff, which included lots of heavy lifting all of the time. That is the last thing you want to do before a big race is other strenuous activity that taxes your muscles. Up until Saturday I had conceded that I shouldn't even really race the race and instead treat it as a workout due to all of the moving stress. But race-day came, I felt hungry and fired up and for the first time relatively healthy, so lets go for it and see what happens.


Breaking down the Race

The race takes place at the SUNY Albany campus and loops around the New York State Office complex. It takes place at noon to accommodate those of use who have social lives.... I guess that doesn't include muoa.

One important detail, was that although it was warm, there was a nice biting wind during the race or as I call it an extra middle finger from mother nature and she just sticks it in your face. Thanks to the way the course is configured multiple times you run up a gradual incline with that wind beating you down.

So the race goes off and I find myself tucked in behind a group of still drunk but super elite runners. And when I say super elite, I mean these fucking people are so fast they can beat me in a race on a broken leg, that kind of fast. So of course I am working fairly hard to maintain my pace about 6:12 per mile and they are having a sunday conversation. Not that I ever though of myself as elite, but that's the most humbling thing ever. I wasn't close to the lead pack either which included a local runner who I normally come pretty close to and on a good day can beat.

But I had a race to run, so I just tried to settle in, the course isn't exactly a fun course to run and because it loops around, there are always others in the way which adds another challenge. But I just settle din for the first few miles and tried to maintain. At about mile 5 some other very talented masters runners came up to me and passed me. That turned my entire race around, because at that point I added another gear to keep up and found a new rhythm My pace went down into the low 6 minute range and I felt confident.

About the local runner who had opened up a big lead on me, she came back into my vision at about mile 7 and I noticed I was slowly cutting into that lead. I noticed the gap shrinking slowly as the miles progressed until all of a sudden I was at mile 12. Ahh yes the last mile of a half marathon, the less lethal cousin of the marathon brick wall. That last mile also included that wonderful uphill section making for an especially painful finish, but all of sudden the finish line is in sight and that runner is right there. I ran by another runner who screamed at me to catch her, though the gap was still pretty big. My legs were screaming at me by that point. I check my watch for the 13.1 split and it shows 1:20:36 .With about 100 yards to go I went for it and BOOM at he very last step I sprinted by. I look at the clock 1:21:09 a new personal record. Finally a race where things came together. Running can be a very streaky endeavor and when things go wrong they GO WRONG.

So there we have it a 10 second pr to start off 2017, a powerful finish for dessert. It's already been a good year one race in. I just have to stay healthy and hungry, and 2017 the year of the Boston will be everything 2016 wasn't.