I won my entry to the NYC Marathon as part of the New Balance and Believe In the Run Train to NYC contest. We received free entry to the race and free apparel throughout the training cycle with the expectation that we’d race in a New Balance shoe on race day, so I trained all cycle only in New Balance and raced on race day in the SC Elite v3 NYC Marathon edition. I paid for my own flights/hotel/meals.
Friday
Ross and I flew into NYC Friday afternoon. I was hoping to be able to attend the Ali on the Run live show with Ellie Kemper but unfortunately by the time we made it to the hotel, it was already 3:45 p.m. with the show beginning at 4 p.m. over a mile away so the timing didn’t work out. I relaxed in the room for a bit and then Ross and I got some steamed dumplings and rice prior to heading over to the expo which was easy to navigate and not as crowded as I was expecting for Friday evening! I was in and out within 30 minutes and while I heard there were some cool displays to see, I wanted to make it over to a New Balance welcome party we had been invited to as part of the Believe In the Run Train to NYC team in time; what I didn’t realize was that the panel discussion didn’t actually start until 7:45 so not that many people had arrived at 7 when I was there and I definitely felt a little out of place since I didn’t know anyone (I actually didn’t even recognize a single face besides Tommie Runz who I did say hello to) and also wasn’t drinking (it was an open bar) before the race. Queue the social anxiety of, “is everyone looking at me because I’m sitting here by myself…?” Fortunately another woman from Indiana (Midwest gals stick together!) came and sat next to me and we both shared similar feelings about feeling out of place! The panel began and it was a nice way to set the mood for the weekend talking about running and sharing some laughs with other runners. On my way back, I grabbed a slice of 99 cent cheese pizza (a NYC staple) and Ross and I watched Friday’s episode of The Great British Baking Show in the hotel while eating pizza in bed – perfect end to the night!
Saturday
I had a shakeout run at 10 a.m. with Believe In the Run on the schedule for the morning so I made my way over to Lavan Midtown where all of the New Balance events were happening for the weekend. I met up with some of my teammates from the Train to NYC before heading out for a run along the West Side Highway which had incredible views and was a new-to-me route! I shared 3 miles with Liv Paxton, one of my teammates, and it was so nice to finally meet in person and run together (I will definitely reach back out when I’m in Charlotte!). After the shakeout, I headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit before heading out again to get my carb loading box on the Upper West Side from Meghann Featherstun and Meaghan Murray, getting lunch with Ross at a sandwich shop, and then going in separate directions as I went to go get my hair braided in Murray Hill (thanks, Bryn!) and he went back to the hotel. After the braids, I went back to our hotel for a quick nap, and then Ross and I made our way to Eataly where we had reservations for a pasta dinner. Lots of fresh pasta later, we walked back to our hotel where we watched the Blackhawks game before I turned off my light and went to bed with a 4 a.m. alarm set. I had ended up walking nearly 7 miles that day between everything being so far apart (I was taking the subway but it still required a decent amount of walking to each location) and was a little irked at myself because I knew I overdid it in Chicago 4 weeks ago with too many activities and time on feet, but have realized that this is just kind of the issue with a big city race like NYC unless you’re an elite where the people come to you to drop off food, you don’t have shakeout commitments, etc. Fortunately I wasn’t chasing a time this race but note to self, pick a lower frills race next time (except for Chicago – that’s easy for me being local and the logistics in general are much easier, just don’t commit to anything outside of a shakeout and expo).
Sunday
The 4 a.m. alarm went off and I didn’t realize it but apparently I hit snooze on my phone because the next time I woke up it was to the alarm going off at 4:09 – thank goodness I hit snooze and didn’t turn it off! Even with gaining an extra hour of sleep with daylight savings falling back, it still felt so early, but I got myself out of bed and into the bathroom where I changed, made coffee, and ate my breakfast to keep the room as quiet as possible so Ross could keep sleeping (the room was tiny – it wasn’t a big deal to hang out in the bathroom lol). I had laid out all my clothes and packed my bag for Staten Island the night before so this made it easy to grab everything quickly and head out to the buses at Bryant Park where I was meeting my local Chicago running team to ride over together. Hanging out with my team race morning really helped calm any nerves and before we knew it, a few hours had passed and it was time to head over to the corrals! I ended up starting the race with Liv and her friend, Olivia, who had both just come off of sub-3 hour marathons in Chicago and Berlin respectively and who were planning to run a similar pace to me for their fun run marathon. We all started together and somewhere in the first mile had the 3:20 pace group creep up which I decided to hang with since my plan had been to go out no faster than a 1:40 first half with the goal to run a strong back half on a challenging course. The first mile is known to be slow – you gain 160 feet of elevation going straight up the bridge and lose 0 feet – but on top of that the NYRR puts all of the celebrities and other special guests at the very front of Wave 1 which creates a lot of chaos and dodging/weaving for the first several miles (I really am not sure why they do this and don’t let them get special access to maybe the back of Wave 1 because it seems dangerous for everyone involved!). In addition to that, I should disclose that as part of a New Balance team I had the ability to change my corral/wave on race day which was much appreciated as I had been assigned a 3:40 corral initially but was hoping to run closer to 3:20 (and had the data to back it up with 3 marathons in the last year at that level) which started in wave 1; I lined myself up appropriately for my fitness level but I imagine some people who have access to this do not and also contribute to the weaving/dodging problem. That being said, I’m extremely grateful I had the ability to do this as I can’t imagine the amount of dodging and weaving that would’ve been going on starting in a corral 20 minutes slower than what I was hoping to run. There were also a lot of people standing up on the median in the middle of the bridge taking pictures…at least they were out of the way but I have to imagine hopping down off of that could take someone out.
I tried to stay relaxed here and not get too frustrated, as I had gone in knowing from the last time I ran this that this mile could be up to a minute per mile slower than what I would like to run. We hit the first mile in 8:20, which didn’t feel as easy as an 8:20 usually would, but then we hit the downhill half of the bridge and cruised to a 7:25 second mile before settling in once things leveled out the next few miles. I was manually splitting my watch at each mile marker knowing that the GPS can get a little wonky with bridges/city buildings. I ended up hanging out with the pace group for awhile until I lost them for a bit when we hit a rolling hills section in Brooklyn and the pace was feeling a bit hot for that early on in the race (mile 8ish), so I backed off and tried to run my own race for a little bit listening to my body. I saw Ross around this point who was holding onto another handheld full of Skratch for me; in 8 miles I had already finished the 12 oz. one which was a pretty good indication that I was running warmer since in Chicago it took me till 13.1 miles to finish that same handheld when it was about 10 degrees cooler out. We had planned on doing a handheld hand-off but I knew there was a possibility of not finding him with how many people were on course and had a backup plan to just dump cups of water into my current handheld if needed; having the extra bottle of Skratch really made a huge difference I think though because my sweat rate was much higher than expected, likely coming off of weeks training in the 30s-low 40s and now racing in full sun, upper 50s-low 60s where apparently I had lost all heat acclimation (usually I love these temps for running so I’m not complaining, it just meant I was sweating more than I typically would be).
Somewhere in mile 9 I ended up catching back up to the 3:20 pace group unintentionally but seeing Ross had given me a little boost I needed to get my head back in it and I found myself stride for stride with them again. Around mile 10 all of a sudden my headphones stopped playing any music and I didn’t even try to fuss with my phone in my back pocket. It was very quiet in this section as it’s a community where there aren’t a whole lot of fans out, so I left the headphones in hoping maybe my music would turn back on. It never did so I took the headphones out around mile 11, put them in my shorts, and never reached for them again. It was amazing to run the rest of the race without them listening to the sound of the crowds around me, and even in the quieter sections like the mile 13.1 bridge or Queensboro where there are also no fans, I didn’t mind not having something playing which surprised me. I love running to music and podcasts but I’ve also done nearly every long run this cycle with teammates around not listening to music so that definitely helped me feel more comfortable not listening to something (that and the millions of fans constantly cheering – it was epic!). My headphones have become a bit of a crutch for me; I psych myself out sometimes when I start hearing myself breathing heavy since I have exercise-induced asthma and it scares me into thinking I’m having an asthma attack, but it’s been something I’ve been working on mentally to not be so reliant on it as there are instances like NYC where they just stop working!
Around the halfway mark, I crossed in 1:40:36 which was right where I wanted to be and I saw one of my DWR teammates, Emily, ahead and ran to catch up with her. She told me that she wasn’t feeling great and I shared similar sentiments. Everything just felt harder than it should at this point, and my hamstring which had given me no trouble in a long time decided that with all the hills it was time to start talking back again. I don’t know what it was though about sharing some strides with Emily but I think hearing that it wasn’t just me feeling like this was more challenging than expected helped calm my nerves a bit and made me feel not so alone in the pain. A little bit further up, I ran into Kim who I’ve known for several years now (IG friends turned real life acquaintances a couple times in races now!) and she shared that she was keeping it easy feeling the effects of some higher humidity (I don’t blame her being from dry mountain air in Utah; it was even more humid than I was used to in the Fall!). This was more validation that what I was feeling was normal and somehow a flip switched in my mind and I was back in race mode wanting to see how strong I could finish the back half.
When I got to the Queensboro Bridge around mile 14.5, I remember getting chills as we made the turn onto the bridge and started our ascent. This bridge had completely destroyed what was left of my morale in 2021 when I ran the race and this year I was hungry and ready to do better. It was dead silent on the bridge, especially without any music in, but occasionally runners behind me would whoop and yell words of encouragement and it was such a cool bonding moment with total strangers. I remember passing so many people as we made our way up the bridge thinking just how strong I felt this time around tackling this bridge. When we got to the top of the bridge and it flattened out, lots of the runners started cheering as we started our descent down the bridge and eventually onto 1st Avenue. The noise from 1st Ave. grew louder and louder until we made the turn and it truly did not disappoint. When I ran the race in 2021, it was half the field size and because it was still during the pandemic, I don’t think as many spectators came out and I remember being really underwhelmed by this section that I had heard would be deafening (honestly the whole NYC Marathon – and it was what I was most looking forward to this year to see if it actually lived up to the hype in a normal year). It was the complete opposite experience this time around and this was one of my faster sections on the course gaining momentum from the fans while still staying within myself while running (I had heard from so many people not to let yourself go too crazy here as it’s easy to get ahead of yourself in miles 17-19 and then still have a ways to go).
Around mile 20 on the Willis Bridge as we crossed into the Bronx, I remember hearing someone say, “is this the last bridge?” and knowing all too well that there was still one to go. These last couple bridges aren’t even that bad but at these later stages of the marathon, any incline feels a lot bigger than it actually is. I remember feeling really warm in the Bronx with the sun beating down and not much shade, and my pace did start to slow here (instead of high 7:30s/low 7:40s I started averaging high 7:40s/low 7:50s), but I was proud that I was continuing to battle and not giving myself an out. I remember seeing on a big jumbotron coming past mile 20 the female winners being presented with their prizes and saw that Hellen Obiri had won the race, which as a fan was cool to witness. There are 7 turns in the Bronx and I lost count of them but knew that I had to be getting close to leaving them and sure enough we were on the Madison Avenue Bridge where in 2021 I remember a volunteer running out to give me a bottle of Gatorade because she was concerned with how I was looking (not great lol). Not this time! Up and over that “last damn bridge” and time to start making our way home to Central Park. I was deep in a little pain cave when all of a sudden I heard someone yelling “Katherine! You look great!” and looked over and saw it was Kofuzi running on the sidewalk cheering for me! He was in the perfect spot around mile 22 where I needed a little bit of a boost as we headed into one of the most difficult miles of the whole race, the climb from mile 23-24 (seriously, who puts an 80 ft elevation gain mile at mile 23-24 of a marathon!). This was my slowest mile of the day at 8:27 and I just had no more gas but promised myself I’d keep moving and putting one foot in front of the other. When I made it to mile 24, one of my DWR teammates was in Central Park cheering and I did my best to pick up my stride (I did! That next mile was faster!) and knew at this point I only had about 2 miles to go and was going to finish this marathon! I remember thinking that I didn’t remember this many hills in Central Park the last time I did the marathon, but the only option was to keep moving forward! Mile 25.5 is a little deceiving as you actually exit the park for a few blocks prior to turning back in for another half mile to finish, but I knew this, too. I remember hitting mile 26 and trying my best to muster a kick to the finish (7:24 was the best kick I had at that point!) and crossing the line just so happy to be done running and also so proud of myself for how I managed myself out on the course. I did not feel good in the last 5K of the race and this 5K was the difference between a 3:22 and the 3:23 I ended up running, but I know without a doubt I did everything right to get myself from start to finish and think this race was one of the best executed races I’ve ever had (maybe only second to CIM which is still my only negative split marathon to date and PR!).
My first half of the race was run in 1:40:36 and my second half was run in 1:42:53. I was hoping that by going out conservatively no faster than a 1:40 first half that I’d have the juice to close sub-1:40 in my second half and break 3:20 on this course, but for how hard things felt early on I’m so very proud of the way I managed my effort on a warmer day on a very challenging course that can eat you up and spit you out if you aren’t smart. I left NYC with no regrets on race day and like I finally can cross this one off the list not needing to come back for redemption anymore; I realized later on that I’ve officially run all 4 marathon majors now in a BQ time so that’s a pretty fun stat to have!
So What’s Next? Final Training Cycle Thoughts.
I’m planning to take a break from a spring marathon next year. I’m proud of how my body handled both Chicago and NYC this year and I enjoyed running Boston in 2023 on my birthday but I vowed to myself after that cycle that I’d be done with winter marathon training for awhile since I don’t love winter running in Chicagoland; super long runs in the cold wind and icy roads are not my cup of tea! That being said, I’m looking to sign up for some shorter races in the spring (I already signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle) and then have an entry to the Chicago Marathon with a time qualifier which will likely be the fall goal! I’m taking some time to think through what the rest of spring will look like but for now I’m happy to be going for long walks with Lola and enjoying some downtime.
This training cycle was everything I needed and more. It completely turned my year around and I feel so blessed to have been able to find community in running again. I usually have the words to say but in this case I don’t really know how to communicate what this cycle meant to me other than to say thank you to teammates, coaches, friends, and family who have supported me in this journey these last 4 months. I was a shell of myself when I started this summer and I feel like I found myself again and that means more than a PR ever will. But don’t get me wrong, this cycle had me seeing glimpses of past fitness that I haven’t seen in awhile and made me excited for all that’s to come in the future because I’m not done yet 🙂
Chasing Unicorns LLC 