18 Mile George Washington Bridge Run

Today was an amazing experience, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to all of my teammates.

This was a very important run for me, since I had not done the 16 miler when I opted to just do the New York Half Marathon that day and skip the pre-race 2.9 miles with the team. I have a time goal in mind for November 5th, to finish in 3:15:59 or better which will qualify me for the Boston Marathon in April. I had tried to do it in June at San Diego, maintaining the required 7:29 pace for the first 14 miles, but then I became fatigued and couldn't maintain it. I missed by a wide margin, 3:38:15, 22:16 away from the goal.

So now I would be increasing from 13.1 to 18, and it would be a test to see if I could maintain the pace, especially during the last few miles. I started out with the 8:00 group but after a couple of miles, Erik, Jakob from Denmark (not Jakob from Switzerland) and Spencer broke off from the pack. I scooted around everyone from my position in the back and joined the rebels. We ran up the west side of Manhattan, along the Hudson River, and up a series of tough hills in Washington Heights and Fort Tryon Park. The game plan for today was to run commute pace for 20 minutes and then step it up to warm up pace for 5 minutes. Unfortunately, one of the pickups coincided with the first set of monsterous hills. I lagged a little behind on each hill we encountered but caught up on the flat portions.

We had gone about 8 or 9 miles when we came upon the George Washington Bridge, which connects Manhattan to the state of New Jersey. At this point I had nothing left in the tank, I was physically and mentally exhausted from all of the hills we had climbed to get up from the river to the top of the Heights. But then we started seeing our teammates, many of them clad in our bright green uniforms. The coaches had staggered the starts with the other pace groups all getting a head start, so this was the point when we were starting to catch up to everybody. When we got up onto the bridge and headed towards New Jersey we exchanged high fives with many of our teammates and cheered each other as they headed back into Manhattan.

Seeing everybody was an inspiring sight and I instantly started feeling better. When I got to New Jersey and turned around to do the last 7 miles, I knew I was going to be able to run all the way back to the start without slowing down at all. Erik and I stuck together and finished in 2 hours and 18 minutes. The run was actually 18.5 miles (there was 0.5 mile mini-run around the track at the park we started in to gauge our pace that we included in the time), so my pace was 7:28, 1 second ahead of the required Boston pace. So now I am confident that I have a chance to do it, as long as I stick with the program and can continue that pace for the 20 miler and the 23 miler that loom on the horizon.

So I would like to thank all of my teammates for being out there today and giving me the strength to pick myself up and carry on to the finish. I would also like to apologize for blowing of the first 3 miles of the 16 mile run 2 weeks ago, I now realize I did the wrong thing that day. This is a team, and teammates are supposed to be there for each other, especially during the long runs. I skipped part of a big run for selfish reasons, so I'm sorry for that and I won't let it happen again.

Hope to see some of you Friday night for the "Without Limits" party co-hosted by guest chef Danika Landers. Email me at bobscof@gmail.com if you'd like to attend.