Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Post Race Review - BROOKLYN Rock and Roll Half Marathon, Sunday, October 15, 2017

Let's start from the end. I was trashed by this distance, by this event. My body was demolished as I had nothing in my legs. I had no spring in my thighs, and strangely, calves were sore even before the race began. My lungs and torso were sore. I don't know what happened. 

This was my worst sports outing ever, followed close by the recent Cow Harbor 10 km distance event. Although that performance I could justify by the post symptoms of a cold a few days earlier. Is my body shutting down past the 5 km threshold? Is the recent biking on the hills of the north shore of Long Island taking away energy, instead of adding conditioning? 

I am baffled. Perhaps I should ask the doctor, who recently conducted the annual physical check-up, to look closely at the blood and urine results. 

I could come up with the typical, cliches - Everyone has a bad day; Today wasn't your day; At least you completed the Half Marathon; There's always the next one, etc. But the cliches leave me with the same questions. What happened? Was it the humidity? Was it the race start time of 7:00 a.m. (although, I've been running recently as early as 4:45 a.m.) Was it that I am sitting too much in the office or in the car while driving to the various construction job sites in Long Island? 

According to the statistics for this race, the 5 km and 10 km pace were very consistent with prior results. Starting from mile 7, the wheels fell off. Actually, the wheels fell off before that, but I paid the price trying to remain running at a steady pace. 

I tried all the tricks in book, specially the run-walk-run approach, which usually one loses time during the walking portion, and makes it up by running faster overall. This didn't work. Much less during the last miles inside Prospect Park's famous hills. 

The challenge of a Half Marathon is more mental and distribution of internal energy. The mind was telling my body what to do, but the body was not responding at all. I tried to feed off the drumming of the local high school marching bands - Nothing. I tried to feed off the encouraging posters that I read along the way - Nothing. I tried to perk up when I saw Asian drums pound in a steady, repetitive beat - Nothing. I tried to react to the cheers of total strangers on a Saturday morning in Brooklyn - Nothing. I tried to feed off the excitement and energy of other runners - Blank.  I had nothing, and when I walked instead of running, I walked in pain, with lungs and torso hurting, bruised ego, and hunched over back - signs of a defeated person. 

Usually, I am very alert of my surroundings, and in the state of mind that I was in, I never noticed my friend Bob Murphy pass me. I only knew this when he called me from the Finish Line  while I was still "running". I huffed and puffed answering the cell phone, and told him that I was not there yet. Once at the Finish Line area, I literally laid on a cardboard box, looking at the sky and asking again and again, as I gulped a cold Gatorade drink - what happened? 

Well, the "fun" was not over for me. After Bob and I took some photos around the Grand Army Plaza, Bob took the subway back home. By coincidence, he bumped into my brother in the same subway car. In the mean time, I was walking along Flatbush Avenue, walking the wrong way. I knew this when I saw the Barclays Center, when I should've been walking south. I went back along Flatbush Avenue, with the Finisher's Medal still around my neck, walked, and walked, and walked, and got more blisters on my feet due to the wet, sweaty socks, than running/walking the Half Marathon. 

I was getting curling cramps where I didn't know I had muscles. I had to stop and stretch on Flatbush Avenue right outside a place that sold wigs and hair extensions. People looked at me strangely. I was fascinated being in the neighborhood, which most times I would pass by in a car. That's the beauty of running, or in this case, walking, when one sees people, buildings, at a closer distance, even when in pain.