Lost the Battle but Won the War: Race Report of the Battle of Brooklyn 10 miler

It wasn't me who lost the battle today, but the Americans in August of 1776. Today, I commemorated the brave soldiers of the Battle of Brooklyn, also known as the Battle of Long Island or even more interestingly to me, the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. Brooklyn Heights? Hold up...the same place where wealthy people take their doggies to eco-friendly day spas? Yup! Before the Revolutionary War Brooklyn Heights was elevated farmland and orchards, settled by the Dutch (Breukelen is a town in the Netherlands) who recognized its upmarket real estate potential even then.

All of this history is fairly interesting to me. I live in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, named after General Nathaneal Greene (that's how it's spelled) who was put in control, by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces George Washington, of the Long Island armed forces. But he got sick before the British attacked Long Island and was unable to take part in the battle. The site of Fort Greene Park, the place where I take my dog to off-leash hours in the morning, was once a entrenchment that General Greene oversaw the construction of, presumably before he got ill.

When the British fleets landed on Staten Island in June 1776 George Washington did not know if they planned to attack Manhattan or Brooklyn, so he divided the army in half and placed them in both cities (Brooklyn was its own city until 1898). In August, 15,000 British troops arrived in Brooklyn in the hopes of finding the best artisanal mayo. Kidding! They did, however, find taverns. They also outnumbered the American troops and, in a maneuver that is too complicated to go into here (full disclosure, I don't know what happened), essentially attacked the Americans from behind. The Americans retreated to Brooklyn Heights where it was decided they would escape and head back to Manhattan to unify the forces. Fog had descended on the East River after several days of rain, and they were able to escape safely overnight undetected by the British Army.

Fittingly, it rained today! I got up at 6 a.m. to get ready for the race which started at 8:00. On my way to the park I met a nice guy who came from Manhattan to run in the race and wasn't sure where the starting area was. As we walked we talked about running and training for races. Small talk for runners.

You don't see these flags very often, and at first I thought to myself, why are they displaying old British flags at this thing?...USA!...USA! I actually had to look it up to see what it is. And much to my relief it's a rare American flag called The Grand Union Flag or The Continental Colors Flag. It was in use from 1775 to 1777, at which time the U.K. Union Flag you see on it was replaced with the stars. Yeehaw!

 Some people donned fancy, gold-trimmed cocked hats.

A small group of runners (under 600 people ran today) gathered at the start and after a short speech and a really nice Star Spangled Banner the horn went off.

The race started on a downhill on the west side of the park, so I took off pretty fast knowing that I could coast a bit. On the other side of the park we hit zoo hill no less than three times (the race was three loops around the park) where some jokers posing as British soldiers were stationed with giant water guns! It was one of the best things I've seen in a race, and it almost made the hill totally worth it.

The first loop went by really fast as I knew it would. The second loop was the most challenging for me. The third loop (and the third time running on zoo hill) was really hard. But I was able to kick it up a notch at the end and finish strong.

My Runkeeper app said that I ran 10.4 miles. I spoke with a woman after the race who said her gps also said she ran 10.4 miles. Accordingly, I ran an average 8:33 pace, but my official results were different.

Official results:

Your time of 1:28:53 gave you a 8:53 pace per mile. There were 115 finishers in the Female 30 to 39 age group and 535 finishers in the race. Your overall finish place was 262 and your age group finish place was 30.

One hundred and fifteen out of 535 runners were in my age group! Women in their 30s dominated this race!

I just read this out loud to see if my history lesson made sense (it's put together piece meal from a bunch of different sites- I'm obsessed with fact-checking), and as I was reading Oscar raised his head and let out a very deep sigh. I hope it was more interesting for you than it was for him.

USA! USA!

33 Days 10 Hours and 28 Minutes

The good news is that I got my Garmin watch to do other stuff besides tell time. The bad news is that its battery died today at mile 15.  *Heavy sigh*

Five weeks of training are left. Well, four are left if you take into account the last week of "tapering" when I will be in Cape Town, peeping at penguins, climbing Table Mountain during full moon (sounds so pagan) and washing down seafood and carbs with South African wine. I'm feeling like a real runner, particularly this weekend. You know why? I did not let any douchebaggery get in the way of my training. Yesterday, I ran 7 miles, getting some great hill repeats in. I was feeling fairly worked-up, so I blasted M.I.A. through my headphones and pretended to shoot guns in the air all over Brooklyn Heights. You should try this. 

Today I ran for 3 1/2 hours. I'm not sure exactly how many miles it ended up being since the Garmin battery ran out at the 15th mile. Using the watch, I learned that my comfortable non-racing pace is 9 minute miles. I kind of figured that. I still think this is going to be too fast for me during Two Oceans. I'm going to play it safe by aiming for a steady 10:30 pace so I can finish in under 6 hours. This will also give me the opportunity to take in the gorgeous scenery and stop at the refreshment stations. Today, for fuel I took along a peanut butter cliff bar (ate it an hour in) and a cliff power shot (chocolate). I'm not paid by Cliff Bar, btw. I didn't plan on getting thirsty, which is dumb. I ended up stopping at a Dunkin' Donuts in Carrol Gardens to beg for a cup of water. I'm guessing that my sweaty disheveled appearance did not help but my spandexed booty couldn't have hurt. Especially when I went back for cup number two. The run was pretty uneventful. At one point my toe cramped up and I stopped quickly to take off my shoe and massage my foot. A woman with three little girls in pink jackets stopped to see if I was alright and I said I was and that I'd been running for a couple of hours and they all seemed excited by this. The brief massage and encouragement solved the problem and I kept going, guns in tow.

Race Report: Al Gordon Classic 4 Miler

Results
Chip Time: 31:19
Overall Place: 1059
Gender Place: 195
Age Group Place: 27


The New York Road Runners organized a race this weekend in Prospect Park. Over 4,000 people participated, including me and my visiting Boone friend. NYRR's website invited people to courageously step outside of Manhattan and enjoy the countryside of Brooklyn, where I'm sure they were surprised they didn't have to step around cow patties upon stepping out of the subway station. I kid. But their race description that was geared toward people living in Manhattan, as though the most populous borough of Brooklyn isn't filled with runners who support NYRR races, was really silly.

But I digress. The point is that I PR'd with a 7:50 pace. I am familiar with Prospect Park and I think it gives me some advantage when I've been training well. Despite my familiarity I still steered my Boone friend wrong and told her that "the hill" should appear around mile three (I thought we would be starting out differently). "The hill" actually happened right away, so she was taking it easy (and also thinking that it wasn't really a hill since she lives on the side of a mountain and knows real hills) with the expectation that she'd have a hill to conquer later on. That never happened. And she was one second slower than her goal 10 minute mile. Oh no!

In more exciting news, I got the Forerunner 210 Garmin watch! And heart monitor. (The Garmin is a GPS watch that records all kinds of highly classified information.) And if I knew how to use it I am sure that it would be really awesome. Right now I can honestly say that it tells very good time. Very good. Like if NASA were to design the most precise clock in the world, my watch and that clock would say it was the same exact time, but my watch would be better because it would be on my wrist. All weekend long I've looked at it to see what time it is and I'm really glad I have it. The woman who sold it to me at JackRabbit Sports invited me to a monthly long-Sunday-run, and I showed up this morning hoping she would be there so I could ask her how to use the watch. Alas, she wasn't there, but I still really enjoyed myself. We ran 10.5 or 11 miles (depending on whose watch you believe), winding through Brooklyn along the water front and even passing my apartment at one point.

The best part of the whole run was that we ran past a row of firemen in a very industrial part of Redhook. They were standing in the street beside each other, maybe six or seven of them, and each of them was smiling and holding part of a long hose.

Race Report: Cherry Tree 10 Miler

Results
Chip time: 1:22:46
Overall place: 360
Gender place: 101
Division place: 12

I've been looking forward to the Cherry Tree 10 Miler, organized by Prospect Park Track Club. I had some rough races at the end of 2011, including PPTC's Turkey Trot which was only 5 miles but ended up being very aptly named for me. Before the Cherry Tree I was curious to see how much stronger I've become from Two Oceans training.

I don't want to say anything bad about the PPTC or Jack Rabbit (the local running shop) races because I am so happy they are organizing Brooklyn races, walking distance from my apartment. These races are smaller than the ones by New York Road Runners, and getting 12th place in your age group sounds  a lot better than getting 3012th. But if I had one complaint it would be not having bagels right there at the finish area, handed to me like a delicious gluten-filled trophy by a smiling volunteer who says, "Congratulations!" They did have some refreshments but they were at a high school a mile from the finish area, in the opposite direction of where I needed to go to put my pajamas on. That's all. Done complaining.

The 10 mile races in Prospect Park are three loops around the park. It's not an easy run because there is "the hill" in the park that is long and challenging, and this means it has to be run up three times. But the park is really beautiful and if you're lucky you'll get to see ducks and horses along the route. If you're unlucky you'll get cussed out by a biker with road rage.

I got a ride to the race from a friend and arrived nice and early. I started out kinda slow today with what felt like a million people passing me, but at the 7th mile I started to feel high and unstoppable (maybe this is one of the reasons I'm a long distance runner and not a sprinter). The finish line was after a downward slope that curved left into a side road and I felt like my legs were moving on their own and I was flying. I could see the clock at the finish line reading 1:22: 50, so I kicked it up a notch to get under 23 minutes. My chip time (the chip runners wear to record their official results) was 1:22:46 (8:17 pace). I came in 360th place out of 867 finishers. Or 12th place in my division.

Also, I had on new pants because yesterday my cat ate almost an entire sock (if he was a human being he'd be a pack a day smoker) and then threw up on my running pants. When he gets really sick like this (or hungover) I have to force feed him water through a baby syringe. Fun times.

Friday Picture Wrap-Up

I see some interesting things when I'm running around Brooklyn.

Birds in Prospect Park

I think it's safe to assume that Lou Reed signed this telephone pole on Atlantic Ave.

Too many bran muffins before a long run and this could be a picture of you in someone's yard.

Post long training run beverage (and drunk cat).

DOMSday

I got a little adventurous this past weekend and made up a new 11 mile (10.92 miles to be exact) loop to do in Brooklyn. I mapped out the course beforehand using runningmap. (I've used mapmyrun before, but I got really annoyed with its ads that block the view of the map and the extra sensitive pointer that draws a line when you're just trying to scroll down. One of these days my toolbox will include a fancy Garmin watch.)

It was a beautiful tour of Brooklyn. The course took me through the cobblestone streets of DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). This was followed by Brooklyn Heights with a breathtaking view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. I trotted along through Cobble Hill, crossed the Gowanus Canal (a Superfund site, not to be confused with "Super fun"),  passed through Park Slope and then ran south of Prospect Park toward Flatbush. Flatbush Ave. turned into Washington Ave, which took me home.

Eleven-ish miles isn't that long of a run compared to the 35 that I'm training for, but my legs are incredibly sore! This route turned out to be very hilly. There is one hill in DUMBO/Brooklyn Heights that is reminiscent of San Francisco (northern Californians can roll their eyes now).

I ran for a couple of miles yesterday, but it didn't loosen up my quads. Stairs are challenging, as is getting out of my office chair. The word for this is DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness. This type of pain always takes me back to the days after the first practice of every soccer season, when I was a kid. I would be so sore from trying to prove myself on the field and it always made me feel tough and proud.

Here are some things I saw on my run:

The tip of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty (which appears small in this picture)

An old fashioned retractable wooden bridge, built in 1889, over the Gowanus

This bridge is the oldest of four of its kind in the country.

A market with outdoor speakers playing Caribbean music

Lively stores on Flatbush Ave.

35 at 35

(picture of a t-shirt signed by Ryan Hall, which a friend from work picked up for me in Boulder, Co)

Around the same time that I was turning 35 I found a marathon in Cape Town, SA called Two Oceans, which also happens to be 35 miles long (56 km by their measurement). Perfect! The only trouble is that I haven't been running nearly as much as I should. Yes, I did the NYC marathon (for the second time) back in early November 2011, but it wasn't one of my finest races. The race-organizing folks are calling Two Oceans an ultramarathon, but I kind of think that should be reserved for 50 miles or longer. Instead, I'll just call it "a long f@$%*ing race."

I've completed seven marathons. Back in 2008 I had been living in Brooklyn for a year and I decided that I wanted to train for my first marathon, the NYC...because I'm crazy. It is difficult to get in this race through the lottery alone, so I raised money for a charity that primarily helped people in poverty living in NYC. It was my way of giving back to this city. Not that things had necessarily been easy living here. I was in a relationship with someone who was neglectful and dishonest, I'd gone through many temp jobs and craigslist gigs (no, not *that* kind of gig) before finally getting a job I liked and I'd had a series of unfortunate roommate situation after my first roommate (who was awesome!) had to leave town for a medical emergency. In the words of my girl Dolly Parton, "The Big Apple took a bite out of me." Training for the NYC marathon took my mind off of my troubles and gave me something positive to focus on. But I still had no idea the extent to which actually running the race would change my life forever. It was, in fact, the best day of my life. I'll never forget crossing the start line, running through Brooklyn and right past my then-apartment in Bed-Stuy with my neighbors sitting out on their stoops, hitting Williamsburg and seeing friends everywhere, running into Queens and getting a big bear hug from my cousin who was yelling his head off for me, and then crying the last couple of miles in Central Park because it hit me that I was actually going to finish. For someone who is plagued with constant self doubt, this was undeniably a great accomplishment. Once that medal was mine nobody could ever take it away from me.

Here's where I should post a picture of me running the NYC marathon, but eff-you Brightroom photography and your terrible race photos! All their photos of me make me look bloated and sluggish. But maybe that's just how I look when I run. Instead, here is the photo with my four-legged training partner that I used for my fundraising page:

Since November 2008 I have fought occasional depression and bad decisions to successfully complete six other 26.2s: Chicago (2009); Silver Spring, MD (2010); Paris (2010); Harrisburg, Pa (2010); Napa Valley (2011); and NYC (2011, again).

This being the first blog post I guess I should say that my goal right now is to write about what inspires me in order to get inspired. I also want to sell tons of adspace and become rich!! JK.

I have three months to train for the Two Oceans Marathon, "the most beautiful marathon in the world." Geeez. This morning, on this beautiful holiday day, I ran for 2 hours around Prospect Park, listening to my standard Wolf Parade pandora radio station. It felt like a decent start. I only need to be able to do that times three...and I'll be good to go April 7th.