Sunday, April 15, 2007

Brooklyn Half

I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon last Saturday, probably the most diligently I've ever trained for a race. Because so much of the race is flat and straight (5 miles on Ocean Parkway) I was gunning for a personal best and going under 1:55 (my best was 1:56 at Staten Island, a very flat course). I was (for me) running like gangbusters, at one point averaging 8:30 for a good 3-4 miles and thought I was going to be in good shape. But the final 4.1 miles is in Prospect Park and while I remembered that the final stretch had some rough hills, I forgot how bad they were, especially around Grand Army Plaza where my infamous "lets get that Chinese kid's bike" story took place.

Long story shit, my legs gave out on the final 3.1 miles and while I entered mile 9 well ahead of my personal best pace I got my ass kicked by the hills and ended up at only 2:00:58 (close to breaking 2 hours which I've only done once and not that far off my best time).

I'm frustrated because I know a different level of preparation is going to be necessary to have the necessary kick at the end of a race like this so this doesn't happen again. I made a conscious effort to be aggressive and attack miles 1-9 which I have always been hesitant to do (this goes back to my swimming days and how I did distance races). I think I’m going to do a running class and crank up my overall mileage a little more to get closer to 20 weekly. You can click on this picture to see my results (don't know why they're so blurry here):





Poking around the NY Road Runners Website I also found myself on the video they shot the day of the race. Ok so it’s only my legs and its for like two seconds as I run by, but I'm in it (I know its me from the white and blue shorts and sneakers).

















About one third of the way though you can see me gracefully cut across the screen here:
http://www.nyrr.org/races/2007/grandprix/brooklyn/video.asp


It was great to see so many people from Explore run the race. It was
the first time running a half marathon many of them (and I only started last year) and the sense of accomplishment they felt was great to see. And we’ve been raising money for a great cause, which was a nice motivator. The donation site will be up for awhile so go ahead please make a gift if you can.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Help some of my old students


I've been training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, which is a week from tomorrow on April 14. I love running, but this race is very special to me because I am running with 25 other staff members from Explore Charter School to raise money to take 15 students to Costa Rica for a 9-day trip. Explore is the public charter school in Brooklyn where I worked as an art teacher in its very first years of existence. Many of the kids going on this trip are students I taught as little kids in grades 1-3, who are growing up faster than I can believe. You can make donation above.

If you're a paper person, no worries:

make a check out to Friends of Explore Charter School and mail it to:

Sharon's World c/o Sheeba Jacob
15 Snyder Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11226

If you're still not convinced of how seriously I'm taking this, I've been running 3X times a week averaging 12 miles weekly over the last month and half and I've given up all deep-fried take-out Chinese food, no joke (which, besides crippling the Astoria Chinese take-out market, actually has me feeling pretty good?!

Here's the school's:

http://explorecharterschool.org/

Street Fighter Salsa

I gotta admit, part of me is kind of mad for not thinking of this myself...