2012 Scotland Run 10K Review

On the Thursday before the 2012 Scotland Run 10K, I went up to NYRR on 89th street to get my super cool Scottish swag bag (click there for some pics and a description). I know its not a huge deal, but I was a little disappointed at being in the 8000s for my bib number with a record 9:03/mile pace. I think the bibs went up to the 10 or 11000s, but still! Oh well.

Scottish Swag Bag

I was debating whether or not to run this race because of my recent injury, but I decided that I'd been looking forward to it for so long that I couldn't miss it. I mean, there were bagpipers. How can you beat that?! I'm a sucker for anything Irish/Scottish since both are part of my heritage. Plus, their culture in general is just super awesome, they drink a lot of really good beer, both countries have pretty rolling hills, and they love to party. Sounds good to me.

The morning of, I just couldn't pull myself out of bed when my alarm went off so I decided to hop in a cab to get to the park. $17 cab for 20 minutes extra sleep: worth it. The atmosphere in Central Park was great and there was a Scottish festival going on before the race start (the same festival was going on at the end too). There was a kilt contest, Scottish face painting, they were giving out little Scottish flags, and the band that played after the race was setting up. It was a really nice way to start the morning!

 

Apparently it was Scotland week, too.

This race was different than the usual CP races because we ran in the clockwise direction rather than the normal counterclockwise flow. I have never run the full loop this way before so it was pretty cool! The hills hit you in different ways. Overall I would say it is less challenging than the counterclockwise direction, but still very hilly. 

 At the start of the race and at each of the mile markers there were bagpipe players, which made the race seem more authentic and exciting since I wasn't expecting it. There were also a significant amount of men in kilts which was certainly a sight to see, let me tell you. Luckily none of the men wore kilts that were too short. Whew! Aside from being distracted by the random sexy man leg I was seeing from the kilt-wearers, I pretty much spent the race concentrating on my form to try to minimize pain in my knee. I also used an IT Band strap which helped alot for this run. Its not a permanent solution AT ALL but my pain was minimal throughout the race. I did have to stop and adjust it a few times but that was a small price to pay, I suppose.

 

 Bagpipers at the start of the raee

As usual during NYRR races, there was a significant amount of fluid stations throughout the course. I think I may have stopped for a few seconds at 3 of the 5 stations to fix my strap and/or rest my knee for a second. Worked out pretty well and I got to quench my thirst on top of it. For the most part, the major hills were early in the race between miles 1-3, but there was a slight hill at mile 5 that had me thinking, "Damn, another hill...come on!". It wasn't as bad as it looked but I could have definitely done without that one. I was happy to run down the main Harlem hills though rather than up them, what a nice treat.

Towards the end of the race the crowds started to grow. For the last .2 miles of the race (which are always the most challenging in a 10K because you always think you are done when you see mile marker 6), there were a lot of cheering fans. After I passed the 6 mile marker I decided to push myself a little bit to the finish because to my surprise my watch was telling me I was on my way to a PR. I crossed the finish line while listening to some awesome bagpipers and was immediately happy to walk it off. My official finishing time was 56:13 (9:04/mile pace)... a 10K PR!!! I did that completely by accident and honestly think that subconsciously I just wanted to finish sooner to rest my knee. Who knows? Either way, I'm happy.

Woohoo 10K PR! Wonder what I would have run if I wasn't injured...

After the race I got my knee wrapped with ice in the medical tent (thanks medical tent workers!), got my bagel, apple, and oat bar, and went to the festival. What a view of the city...

 

 The Scottish band with a beautiful city backdrop

 They were still giving out goodies at the festival so I grabbed a Scottish flag on my way out. I also took another swag bag for my sister (who I went to Scotland with) because they had so many extra at the end. I'm sure if anyone would appreciate a blue Scottish beanie, it would be her. I hung the little flag on my wall near my "Run Like a Girl" race medal display (very fitting display based on the name of my blog, eh!?).

 

 Go Scotland! 

PS. I tested out the Lululemon Pace Setter skirt during this race and its amazing so I ordered another in blue.

This was a really fun race that I definitely want to run every year. Highly recommended! I'll update this post if I get some pictures of myself running with my eyes open for once. I'm not hopeful that will happen since I usually look crazed or pissed off in my photos, but you never know!

UPDATE: photos came in and as usual I ruined them

 

 Photo 1: evil eye to the camera-man

Photo 2: Eyes closed as usual

I'm just so photogenic when I run, aren't I?! Wish I could look like this guy.
I think the skirt looks cute, at least and thank God I got some good pics at the NYC Half where I look like a human.
 
Did you run any races this weekend? Tell me about em!

Running My City: 2012 NYC Half Marathon

The NYC Half was my first "big" race and my first half marathon. Before I started training for this race, I literally never ran more than 4 miles in my life. By the end of the morning on March 18, I had run 13.1. Unreal! 

 ***************

The 2012 NYC Half had a record number of runners: 15,000. Many of them were from overseas but there were definitely a lot of hometown people. The course started with a full 6 mile loop at Central Park, running through Times Square, down the West Side Highway and ended at the South Street Seaport. Its was like a tour of NY in 2 hours.

Race weekend: 
On Friday I headed to the Expo at the Metropolitan Pavilion and picked up my race bib... #18383. The expo had a bunch of cool vendors and some nice giveaways, including free Tommie Cooper compression socks, Odewlla bars and smoothies, and Luna bars (yum!). I also had to buy myself some official race gear, including the NYC Half running hat. Although it was a bit out of my grad-school budget I thought, "Hey, its my first half and I have to prove I ran it somehow!" So I got a sweatshirt and a hat. Plus the race T-shirt was nice but its SO green. Can't wear that everywhere without accidentally blinding one or two people.

 

So I laid out my clothes and gear the night before, set about 6 alarms, ate some pasta, drank tons of water, and tried to sleep. That was the tricky part, I thought I would never fall asleep and just kind of laid there. I managed to fall asleep at some ungodly hour and woke up at another ungodly hour. Around 4:30 I got dressed, ate my pre-race Clif bar, and headed out the door to the long, lonely subway ride to the park. There were a decent amount of drunk people coming home from St. Patty's day celebrations as I'm sitting there in my compression socks and running shorts. They probably thought that I was the crazy one. Even the ones dressed as leprechauns.

When I got to the park it was still dark, which was kind of eerie. I did a warm up run, stretched, waited on the huge line for the Porta potty and got into my corral. After the "official" start of the race it took me about 20 minutes to get to the starting line. That's what 15,000 runners will do to you. Pretty cool though to see the professional runners on their way out of the park as I just was about to cross the start (yeah, seriously... they were that fast). If you blinked, I think you would have missed them. Including my inspiration, miss Kara Goucher..

 Kara Goucher in the NYC Half. Photo by NYRR (nyrr.org).
She finished in 1:06... what?!! Someone described it as her doing a "13.1 mile sprint through NYC"

The loop of Central Park was not as bad as it could have been. Thankfully I did a bunch of training runs on the hills of the park and trained my quads to get stronger and behave on those hills, otherwise it would have been killer. I saw so many people give up and walk up the Harlem hills but I mentally coached myself not to stop and walk... and I succeeded. Also it just so happened that Yellowcard's "Believe" came on while I was running up the hills which always inspires me to keep running.

Times Square... unreal.

After the loop we exited the park and made our way through Times Square for miles 7-8. I ate my GU gel around this time to try to encourage my second wind to kick in. This stretch was the absolute best part of the race and made the $117 dollar price tag on this race totally worth it. When else can you run through an empty TS with crowds of people cheering you on?! My goal was not to trip and fall over a manhole and embarrass myself. Goal accomplished. Luckily my boyfriend Karl was waiting for me in TS and took the super awesome photo above. In all the professional ones I had my eyes closed and looked like I was having a seizure. Plus I think my legs look pretty damn good in that picture so I thought I'd share it with you.

 

 Crossing the finish line. Love the face on of the lady next to me.

After TS we made our way to the West Side Highway. There was some good race entertainment including DJs and cheerleaders, which was cool. Kept me motivated on that super long stretch of road. We passed Chelsea Piers, then the WTC, and went through the tunnel under the southern tip of Manhattan. I saw people doing downwards and at first I was happy for a downhill. But I quickly realized that if we were going down we would have to go back up at some point... sure enough, coming out of the tunnel there was another hill. I thought "are you kidding me?!", but the signs on the side of the road saying "800 meters to go" kept me going. I pushed on, couldn't believe I actually made it to the end, and cross the finish line.
Final time: 2:06.18 (9:39/mile pace)

Post-race festival at the seaport

The post-race festival was at the South Street Seaport. I was a sight to see all those heat foiled people walking around. Must of looked like the strangest festival ever to all the nearby residents. It was a bit crowded though and the line for medal engravings basically went all the way to my apartment in Brooklyn. I passed on waiting. Overall though, the festival had alot of great entertainment and food. Great place to end a race.

Post-race photo and warming up with my heat foil.

So this was an amazing race, nicely organized, and well worth all the work. I've lived in NY forever but never experienced anything like running through Times Square. I am so happy this was my first half marathon and proud of finishing. A special thanks to all the people and volunteers along the course who cheering me and all the other runners on... you totally kept me going! If you can get in by any means, I would definitely recommend this race and I'll see you there next year :)

Did you run the NYC Half? What was your first half marathon?