Half Recap

Sunday, October 17, 2010
Newport, RI
1:39:31- 187 out of 2506

So to start, I cant say how great it is to have all of these people into running now, coming from the person who used to be up at these types or races alone, its awesome to have a team now and to have fellow runner to talk about the races and stuff with. Everyone did a great job, you guys built yourselves up from pretty much no mileage to a half marathon in no time and theres something to be said for that. I don’t know how you got everyone into this Tang, but hats off, you really inspired everyone to get off their asses and get running, and running far.

So to recap the race, I woke up at 6am, got out of bed, got ready and headed to Newport, chauffeured by the Greg. I downed my usual pre race half loaf of peperage farms cinnamon bread and a banana and downed a few bottles of water and all the sudden we were in Newport, when we got off the exit I realized how much of an advantage it was having my dad drive us, the traffic was backed up all the way to where the exit forks (where you can take a left to head to Newport Grand, where the parking was and where you can take a right to head to “Historic Newport” so Greg drove up literally right up to the starting line and we got out and hit up the porta-jons. It was 7:30 in the morning along the beach so it was pretty chilly, I was wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt and lauren looked like she was going out in a snow storm, but the guy in front of us was wearing a tank top and some short shorts and that was it, no socks, no shoes nothing, he was a “barefoot runner”. Ridiculous, us and the girls infront of us started talking to him and he said he’s done it for so long its all he knows, he said he enjoys it except there are some cources that have places that aren’t too barefoot friendly, the week before he ran a half in Hartford and there were two miles of freshly placed pea gravel, he said “but what can you do?” HOW BOUT WEAR SHOES! Haha I get that the whole barefoot thing is how you’re supposed to run and its more natural, but just like I say to the vegeterians who tell me its not natural to drink another species milk and all that guff, people have been doing it for all this time and it’s been workin pretty well, that cows milk gives me strong bones and tastes awesome and my shoes allow me to run over whatever I want without feeling it.

Anyways after that we started the search for Knapp Kob and Nikki. We went to the left hand of the starting line where we were gonna meet them and stood for a few and then I decided to take a lap around the area and look while Laur waited at the starting line, all to no avail. We ended up giving the numbers to Greg who was gonna look for them but that didn’t go so smoothly either haha, at the end they got their numbers so I guess it worked out, although by doing them a favor we really made the whole thing harder on them then it shoulda been, sorry guys!

I shed my warmup clothes and got to the starting line, standing at the 8 min pace markers, the gun went off and we started going. I wanted to start out right around 8 min and keep that throughout and then kick it in the last 3 miles, I started off with what I thought was an 8 minute pace, maybe even slower (it was tough to gague without timers at the mile markers) but when I got to mile 4 I noticed a guy next to me looking at his watch so I asked for the time, 30:25 roughly 7:30 pace, I thought maybe I should slow down, but then I thought eh I’ll keep this up as long as I can and go from there. There was finally a clock at the 5 mile marker and I got there at 38:10, keepin ahead of schedule I was pretty pumped. Kept on keepin on through the half way point and then I thought we got this, this isn’t so bad at all, 13 miles is nothing, Terry Fox did this before breakfast every day ON ONE LEG. The weather was perfect, the scenery was beautiful and it was just a great day to be running. When I got to the 8 mile marker and realized there was only 5 left I was pumped, when I got to the 9 I started getting real pumped, and when I got to the 10 at 1:16:02 and realized this thing was in the bag I was estatic. I said to myself this is it, 3 miles is a cake walk, its what you do at 5:40 every morning, down to Castle Island and back, this race is over. I picked up the pace even more, and when I hit that 12 mile marker “The Club Can’t Handle Me” came on my iPod which I found is the song that makes me run the fastest and I started into a light sprint, I saw my dad at the top of the hill where there was about .5 miles left and hit repeat on the song. Between seeing my Dad, the beats and the fact that it was down hill and the race was almost over I started real nice sprint, which lasted me all the way down the hill and along the beach where I hit the 13 mile mark and could see ahead to the clock counting up from 1:39:29 so I kicked it as fast as I could and crossed the finish well under 1:40:00 which I was super pumped about since I was shooting for 1:45:00.

I went through the shoot and ran back up the hill to go stand with my dad and cheer on my team mates. I had no idea what time they ended up starting so I was surprised when it took so long for Kevin to come by (after the race I found out they started about 20 min in) he was lookin real strong. Then I was expecting to see Knapp and I heard Lauren yell my name, she was looking great, and flashed by me, then there was Knapp rumbling around the corner, looking real strong, he gave me and my dad a high five and took off down the hill. We started walking down the hill while looking for Nikki and were met by KOB and we stood there and KOB spotted Nikki from the distance, she came wizzing by us with a big smile on her face and ran through the shoot. After we met up with Lauren we saw Sean going through the finish. I could write a lot more but I think this is enough haha, all in all it was an awesome day, everyone should be real proud of their accomplishment, you all did an amazing job. I cant wait to take down Boston in April with Knapp, Tang and KOB.