I found this link and this link on mapmyrun.com. They map the run nicely.
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I'm tired. No simpler way to say it. Yesterday just beat me up. Woke up early for the race, ran extra afterwards, drove to city (painless) and then drove home with delays into the tunnel that lasted about 10-15 minutes. A truck was reversing out of the entrance. Took an hour to get home. Got all stiff. Paying for it all now. And now for the details.
Woke up at 2am. Got ready and got the dog ready for his walk. The plan was to walk him at 5am, leave house at 5:30 am, get to Jim's by 5:45. Leave car there. That's his area. He lives close by and runs around there. He knows the sidestreets and best potential for parking spots. Also, it gives me the opportunity to run extra without messing anyone up. I simply finish the race and then run to his house. He came up with a route for me that totaled 6.24 miles so with the 13.1, I have a decent long run.
OK. It's 5 am and the pooch and I leave the house. He's excited as can be. I got the cellphone and the flashlight. I step out and OMG I am freezing. It's 58 degrees out there and I am wearing long sweatpants and my short sleeve running shirt. I didn't want to drag the dog back in to the house so I decided I'll be ok. Hell, it's only 58 and I will be running in this shirt and shorts soon enough. I am freezing. LC finally pooped and we shortened the walk. Still cold. I knew I would regret it later but I decided on long tights with shorts on top and a long sleeve shirt on top of my short sleeve shirt. I could always take off the long sleeve shirt. Going to be comfortable damn it. What a relief. Took a few minutes so got to Jim's at 5:48. He was already ready. I was worried but I knew he knew the area.
Drove to the area and we see a looooooong line of cars going slow. Glad he drove because he decided that's not going to fly. Maed a turn on who_the_hell_knows_what_street and we started scouring for spots. Found a lucky spot in a dead end street. Not bad considering he has a big SUV. Walked about 4 or 5 blocks and we were there. It was about 6:10 or 6:15 and no lines to the porta potties so that's the first stop. What a relief. Parking stress does wonderful things to your GI system. Don't need to explain there I hope.
Approximatly 6:45, I used a porta-tree. I don't care. The lines to the potties was HUGE! No way am I standing in a 20 minute line for a 20 second event if you know what I mean.
At 6:50, I spot a SunRiseTri shirt and I tell Jim that I think it's Dan. Yup. Dan decided to last minute do this and signed up about 10 minutes before. At that point he was busy trying to rid his shoes of the speed laces he got in Canada and put the usual speed laces on. I couldn't take this so I grabbed his other shoe and started helping. Pain in the Ass. It had knots every inch or so on purpose.OUCH. OUCH. OUCH. Every few seconds that's what happened to Jim and me.
His shoes are ready and he still needs to go to baggage claim. Not for us. It's 6:55 and we are heading for the corrals. Jim's corrall is right near the worst of the porta-potties. Mine is further back as usual. Got in and waited.
Race started without too much fanfare. Looked out for APS people and any familiar people. Saw Len on the way to the corral but that's it. Started in obscurity. Last year, I started near Adelle and Gerry.
The course sucks. Nothing else to describe it. It's very narrow. Lot of hills. Lots of turns. Everytime you try to get comfortable in your stride, there is a turn. Usually the turn is into a hill. Got boxed in a few times. Decided, like last year, to break out. Went and ran the sidewalks. The pros in running the sidewalk: Less people and sometimes you gain by shortening the turn. The cons in running the sidewalk: Uneven terrain, spectators and late runners who are running the other direction toward the race start. Not only that but sometimes you are on the wrong side of the turn and you actually make your turn longer. Yin and Yang I guess.
I'm running on the sidewalk and decided for whatever reason to join the crowd. I join when I suddenly hear a crash. Woman, slightly in left and front, on sidewalk did a face plant. Wasn't so much of a crash as much as a whoosh as all the air leaves her lungs. Everyone sorta stops and asks if she's ok. She's fine. Gets up and runs. I think she was more embarrassed than anything else. Hopefully, she still feels like that and it wasn't anything physical being hidden by Adrenalin. I'm sad for her but I also realize how lucky I am. That could have been me. Also, I could have been right behind her as I was about 20 seconds earlier. If I was right behind her when she fell, I would probably would have fallen right on top of her.
At almost mile 3 with the race clock showing 25 minutes, I see a yellow school bus making a u-turn. Lot of people with bibs come off it and start running against us toward the start. OMG! It was a NYRR bus. So, now they have to run 3 miles to the start, to start a 13.1 mile journey. Sucks. Some of these people might be first timers! Another thought comes to my head. Usually the starting mats get broken down about 10-15 minutes after race start. What about these poor souls? It's not their fault!
Here are some comments that I found.
Transportation to the QNS 1/2 this morning was a clusterf***! The advertised shuttle buses from Flushing/ Main Street were not there! Hundreds and hundreds of runner's were left stranded. The MTA actually stepped up and pulled busses out of service to shuttle people to the start, at this time however, streets were closed and they had to drop us 2 miles from the start. Getting up at 4am and and missing the start, priceless. Not what we are used from NYRR. At least the start was left open late. and Actually the MTA dispatcher in Flushing mentioned that "your organizers of that mini-marathon only got two school buses". So he put out MTA buses out of service to shuttle people over. I'm surprised to say that, but the MTA (or that dispatcher) saved my day.
People actually praising the MTA. How bad things must have gotten...
Parts of the course are beautiful. Beautiful McMansions and houses. Parts of the course are ugly, smelly places. Industrial with scent. I don't know if I am smelling College Point or some of the porta-potties but my ultra-sensitive olfactory sense is seriously reeling.
Every so often, I see green parrots or birds. Then I spy huge nests on top of utility poles. Each nest has about 15 of these beautiful birds. Makes me want to take the family there to show it to them.
In on of the beautiful streets, we have a pissed off resident who decides to back up his car from his driveway. He's gotta go somewhere. Words are exchanged. People bang his car. People tell the cop a 1/2 block down. I'm not involved. Managed to keep my mouth shut. Best thing ever. I'm surprised no one spit into his car. Maybe it's better that way.
At 1 point I recognize 1 of Jessie's friends house. I look out to see if I see them but I don't. Oh well.
Mile 12. There are 2 last hills. Both big. Both off a turn. They suck.
I see the park. There's a hard right and a long path to the finish. It's a sucky path that is not smooth and is narrow and is dangerous. I run. Get to 13 and I still run. Some guy noticed my pickup and is chasing me. I like that. I hear him huff behind me, "Should have started running at 12...". He keeps snarling that at me. He actually steps on my shoe a little. That's when I actually really start running. Left him there. DUSTED is the word. After he crossed the finish, he came up to me and again told me that I should have started at 12. I don't care.
Last year, my time was 2:00:39. My goals this year was to beat this and hopefully to be under 2:00. At mile 10, it seemed obvious that it would happen. At mile 12 it was possible with a chance of failure. That guy probably helped me so much without even realizing. I got 1:59:10. Got what I wanted. Happy to retire this race on a happy note.
Got my bearing and my directions and started running toward Jim's house. I don't know who the wise guy is but they changed street names. The map I had, had some other street names for some streets. Had to start/stop quite a few times to figure out my way. Asked a bunch of cops. Lost time. Saw lots of slow runners, runners-walkers and plain walkers. I wonder which of them are slow and which of them really got screwed by the bus mishap. I don't know. I try to encourage them and cheer them on but they can see the fluid stations being broken down. It definitly demoralizes you.
Jim mentione to me he made a small booboo in the course he laid out for me. Unless I can jump over the Cross Island Parkway (with a single leap), I gotta go around it. I look. I feel like I should go left. Logically left makes sense but I go right. I don't know why. Maybe the Dad's old rule of "if you don't know where you are going, then make a right". In any case, I started at 166th and finally found a way to cross over the CIP at 160th. Ran an extra 6 blocks. Now I gotta run another 6 back to 166th. Yup - Left was right and right was wrong. That's ok. It's a long run remember? I thought of running around his block an extra time. ow I don't have to. I figure I did at least a 7 miler. Time agrees too. Got my 20+ mile run yesterday.
I recognize a lot of the streets from the NYC Century when I get closer to his house. That was defintly a site seeing tour.
One more thing to note. Last year, it was 90+ at the start of the race with high humidity. This year we started at low 50's and things warmed up to to 70. During the race, I kept my long sleeve shirt on but eventually folded up sleeves. The last 7 miler, I took the long sleeve shirt off. My throat is raw right now. Not sure if weather related.
That's it. Another race retired (hopefully). I just have to complete the Staten Island half-marathon and I would have completed the entire 5 borough grand prix and the NYC 1/2 marathon and the NYC Marathon. I wish I could do Greta's too but it's the day before painetopain. I already signed up for it so that's it for this year.
And here are some comments by NYRR posted on facebook in response to the comments that were made regarding transportation.
I just want you all to know that we (NYRR) have been reading this thread and hear you. On behalf of NYRR, I want to apologize for the poor experience that some of you had at the NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix Presented by Continental Airlines: Queens. Although we strive in all of our races to ensure the best possible experience for our runners, clearly the transportation aspect of the Queens Half was not up to snuff. Please rest assured that we are listening to your feedback and are taking the steps necessary to correct these problems in the future (including reviewing the location, course, and transportation options for this race). We hope that with the changes we are making you will give the Queens Half another chance. Again, apologies. I promise we are working on it.And from Mary Wittenberg...
Dear Queens Half Runners, On behalf of our NYRR team, we are really sorry and apologize to anyone inconvenienced by the transportation issues on Sunday. As most of you know, we strive every day to deliver top notch races for you - throughout the city. We are only as good as our last race. It hurts alot when things don't go to plan and you suffer. I returned from overseas last night to our team already at work recapping and critiquing and discussing the changes we need to make next year. Given the growth of this event, like many of ours, we will work very hard to move the start and finish to better help address the transportation issues as well as to improve the course to better showcase the best of Queens. All much much easier said than done, but we are committed to do the best we can. Regardless, the shuttle from the subway needs to be rethought and the plan overhauled to deal with the traffic and the numbers of runners. We will be reaching out to everyone that arrived to the race late due to the shuttles, but also wanted to say to all of our runners - that it was unfortunate that the start time and location required such early departures. We couldn't prevent that this year - but we are certainly seeking to ease that need in the future. We appreciate the extraordinary commitment so many of you made to leave home so early to take the buses or to otherwise arrive at Queens early. Your commitment is nothing short of amazing. Truly incredible. Our five borough series is tough enough. Trust that we have no desire to add to the challenge. Looking forward to a much better weekend and hoping to see many of you between the CO Fifth Ave Mile and the Tune Up. Very best, Mary