Good Weekend, Great Race!

Good afternoon – sorry for the lack of posting this weekend. It’s been a busy weekend and I’ve just now had time to take a break. Well, actually I’m currently doing laundry as well as blogging. I definitely want to share a recap of our great NYRR Half Marathon today (YAY), but let me do a quick run-through of Friday and Saturday’s eats – I’ll just give the highlights.

On Friday morning I made Tina’s 3- minute breakfast cookie for the first time and it came out great! I substituted raisins with dried cranberries and used Truvia instead of brown sugar.

It was a really yummy breakfast and something new to break up the monotony.

Lunch was my usual salad (not going to list all the stuff), follow-up by a Chobani yogurt with granola. I’m not posting pics in the essence of time and so as not bore you. But I did enjoy my afternoon snack, which was a KIND bar in a new flavor.

Mango and Macadamia Nut was amazing!

After work I skipped my 3-mile training run for two reason: 1) I knew I’d be running more than 9 miles this weekend (which was the required long run) so I would be making up the mileage, and 2) I wanted to go pick up our race packets. When I got home, Hubby was busy making some venison meatloaf. Yup, venison – in case you missed it – check out this post which talks about my Hubby’s hunting hobby and why I support it. The dinner was amazing.

After dinner, we watched Casino, but I fell asleep about half-way through (it’s a lonng movie).

Saturday was a busy day, with cleaning in preparation for Lauren’s visit and cooking. I started the day off with another breakfast cookie.

I made it larger than before and kept me well-filled throughout the day. For lunch, I had a Chobani yogurt with Kashi cereal, a few pickles (I know – gross combo) and some Triscuits. I didn’t document my lunch.

Lauren arrived around 7:45 and we searched for parking until about 8:15. Then we came home and had some pre-race dinner.

For dinner, I tried making this recipe, (Chicken and Broccoli Mac-N-Cheese) from a site my friend Jess emailed me. I changed a few things up and didn’t buy the pre-packaged broccoli with cheese, but made my own instead. It came out okay, maybe a little more bland then I would have liked.

I may try making another recipe from the site another night though. They had some good ideas. After dinner we just hung out, drank lots of water, watched the SAGs and went to bed early. And now for the NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon Recap:

NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon

I had a kind of restless night of sleep and was not feeling so optimistic about the half marathon the next morning. But, we left the house around 7:15, met up with Katherine, and took a cab to the start. After hitting the porta-potties, we found our corrals and lined up. It was about 38-40 degrees outside, but it still felt chilly.

Finally, the race began and it took us a solid 3 minutes to reach the start. The course was essentially two full loops – starting around West 63rd street and finished at the 72nd Traverse. Exciting and interesting the course was not. But at least you knew exactly how much you had left.

Overall, Lauren and I did very well. We stayed together the whole time and definitely had some ups and downs. Both of us experienced a rough patch around mile 10, but we powered through. The hills in Central Park felt especially large and never-ending today, and even the slighter “rolling hills” were excruciating. But I am extremely proud of our times, here are our stats:

Mile 1 – 8:08
Mile 2 – 8:13
Mile 3 – 7:52
Mile 4 – 8:16
Mile 5 – 8:26
Mile 6 – 8:00
Mile 7 – 8:20
Mile 8 – 8:16
Mile 9 – 8:09
Mile 10 – 8:23
Mile 11 – 8:38
Mile 12 – 8:02
Mile 13 – 8:05
.1 (which was actually .31) – 2:19
Total of 13.31 miles in 1:49:14

As you can see, we ended up running way more than 13.1 – the reason was because it was nearly impossible to keep to the inside of the course, so we were constantly passing and running around the outer edge, so we were running more than we needed to. My Garmin would beep a solid few seconds before we would hit each mile marker.

But overall, despite the extra mileage and cold, we had a great race. Now I’m off to finish laundry, relax, eat more (I’ve already eaten a ton of good stuff …more to come on that tomorrow), and read my book.

Have a great Sunday everyone – and Lauren thanks for a G-REAT race! 🙂