The Yonkers Half Marathon AKA Hills, Hills, and More Hills

So this past Sunday, 9/28/14, I ran in the Yonkers Marathon & Half Marathon. I registered for it kind of late, as I had decided that my time for the Half Sauer/Half Kraut wouldn't suffice to submit for the Disney Marathon. So with two weeks before the race, I paid the late entry fee ($60 to be exact), and psyched my self up for half marathon number 2. Boy was I unprepared.

My marathon training as of late hasn't been going as well as I had hoped. I'm finding it very hard to motivate myself to do those two short weekday runs, and it has been affected my long weekend runs. The last long run I did before this half was just over 10 miles, and calf muscle spasms/IT band pain in the knees had me limping at the end of that one. To remedy this, I bought a pair of calf compression sleeves and started adjusting my foot strike. These will come back later in the story.

With only two short runs before this half, I was a little worried about my leg strength for this one. In my marathon training, however, this week's run would have been 13 miles anyway, so I just wanted to use this as a training run and wasn't too concerned about my time. That being said, I kind of wanted to blow my first half's time (3:10:59) out of the water, and set a rather ambitious goal of 3 hours for myself. I prepped by drinking what I thought was a ton of water the day before and reading Run, Karla, Run!'s race report from last year's marathon. She does a great job, btw, of outlining the course. On the morning of, I felt nervous, but pretty excited to be participating in such an old race.

The race started just a little bit after 8am, just in time for the sun the shine right into the racers' eyes. Karla warned of hills at miles 4 and 10. In my opinion, she should have warned about hills in every single freaking mile. Seriously. The race started up hill and seemed to climb the entire time. The first couple of miles I felt pretty good. I was running at a bit of a faster pace, but that usually happens to me when I get swept up in the excitement of the starting line. I had to make myself slow down with the reminder that I had 10+ miles ahead of me. I would see the hills and be like, "No problem, I've got this." By mile 3, the thrill of conquering the hills had worn off when I saw even more hills, and they all seemed to go up and barely ever down.

Mile 3 is also where my stomach started to have some complaints. I tried to stick to a low fiber diet the days before and I even took some Immodium the night before in hopes of staving off the GI issues I've had in the past. These precautions, however, were to no avail. My stomach demanded I find a porta potty, and as hard as I tried, I could not so the life of me remember which miles they were supposed to be at. When I by chance saw a runner literally run out of one just past mile 5, I almost cried with relief. A quick stop in, and I was back on the course. Unfortunately, not at the best of paces.

The sun at this point was rapidly rising and the blessed shade of the residential areas faded away as the course made its way into more urban areas. The temperature on Sunday got up to 84 degrees, but in the sunny spots, it felt more like 100. Even in the flat areas, it became difficult to motivate myself to run, and I found myself walking way more than I have in past long runs. And when those hills were in the sun, I had no choice but to walk. By mile 9, I was in a very urban area, the cars were racing right past me, and at times it felt like I was the only one on the course. I had hoped, with close to 1000 entrants, the course would have felt more populated. This was certainly not the case.

The water stations were the saving grace to this race. Each was manned by individual community organizations, at at many there were small children happily handing out cups of lukewarm water and Gatorade, cheering you on. One shop owner on the course even set up his own unofficial table, handing out cups of ice and cups of Coca Cola. The ice tasted so amazing. I passed on the Coke, however.

By mile 10, I was exhausted. Thanks to my calf sleeves, my calves were spasm free, but my new strike pattern was unusual to other parts of my legs, and late in the race, I began to get cramps in my Achilles tendons. One painful moment, the toes of my right foot curled up and would not uncurl for a whole agonizing minute. As hard as I tried to keep hydrated, my body was telling me that it was not enough. I tried to eat one blok of my Cliff Shots Bloks per mile in the second half the race and I drank a cup of Gatorade at each station where it was available, but the heat and the hills had me sweating way more than I expected in a late September race in NY. By mile 11, I wasn't sure if I was going to meet my goal.

At mile 12, I texted Mike the following message, "1 mile to go everything hurts gonna finish this bitch." I was at 2:43:00 and I had just seen some of the marathoners pass me. I thought, "Even if I walk this mile, I might still be able to hit my goal." But I didn't want to walk the last mile. I started the race feeling great and I wanted that feeling back. So with some blessed down hill in sight, I began a slow trot to the finish line. I did stop a couple of times to stretch out my tight heels, but by the last half mile, I was gliding to the finish line. I turned the final corner and saw that the official time clock hadn't yet reached 3 hours and my heart just lept. I didn't sprint to the finish like I have in the past, but I sure did run to it.

My official time: 2:59:03.

Race Cons:
*All of those retched hills. There is no way to describe how disheartening the constant incline was. Even when the hills weren't steep, the course still had a slight upward tilt to it.
*Lack of portapotties. I only saw the two at mile 5. There might have been more, but I didn't see them and there definitely weren't any signs pointing them out.
*The late start. The race started at 8, when it probably should have started at 6, so as to avoid heat and traffic. Kristin tells me that the trains out of Grand Central don't start running until about 6am, though, so getting runners up to Yonkers from the city would be an issue. An annoying reality.
*Sparse food spread. I know I finished find of late, but the only fruit I saw were grapes. At the end, I could have really used a banana, or 5.

Race Pros:
*Yonkers PD and Crossing Guards. There was one or the other at each and every traffic crossing, and even though I was alone for most of the second half, they stopped traffic for me every time I came to a crossing. I thanked each and every one of them because that is so awesome.

*Water Station Volunteers. Young and Old, they were all very enthusiastic and dealt with that heat for all of those hours. Some kids even seemed to be competing to see who could give out the most water. It was adorable.

*Very cool t-shirt and finisher medal. I was worried that I had signed up too late to get a shirt, but they had enough. The design and fabric are very cool and I'd be excited to wear it at a future race.

This was obviously a very hard race for me, but I pushed myself through it and it highlighted the issues I need to work on in my future training. I'm really glad I did it, though. I felt really great all day today knowing I had really persevered through it and I feel like if I can finish that, that I can totally finish the Disney Marathon. I think it has brought back my enthusiasm to run and I'm already planning on doing a short run tomorrow.

Super special shout out to Kristin and my husband Mike, both of whom stayed from start to finish and were waiting for me at the end with big smiles. Even more special was the fact that 9/28 was Mike and my 2nd wedding anniversary, and he basically spent it waiting 3 hours for me to cry my way through Yonkers. He's a champ and proves everyday why he's the best man in the world.