lurkive 05-20may03

Please email all complaints to: BSTC

So. As you all know I ran my first half-marathon on Saturday and the only good thing I can say about it is that I finished. Slowly. The weather cooperated. It was cool and didn't rain, and it was overcast so there was no pesky sun to deal with.

My b/f and I left JC at 5:30AM to make the 8:10AM start time. We took the PATH in to 33rd Street, then transfered to take the F train to 42nd, where we transferred a third time to the 7 train, which we took to Shea Stadium out in Queens. Once there, we caught a shuttle bus (provided by Bronx Science High School, thank you very much) to the starting line. What a bitch.

There was a guy passed out on the seats across from us the entire time on the 7 train. He was a bit rotund, had what appeared to be pink vomit on his shoes and his fly was undone. We worried that he was dead until he shifted slightly, and then we realized that behind his open fly, he was going commando. Talk about traumatization - AAAHHHHH!

The first eight miles of the race was great. Our pace was good, I was enjoying the scenery, it was nice. Then all of the sudden, everything shattered. My back seized up, and with every step I took it felt as though a white hot knife was stabbing into my upper back muscles. Horrible. It became all I could do to go on, but I did. Much to my b/f's chagrin, I bitched and complained the entire rest of the race (5.1 miles), almost crying at times. It was really ugly and I'm not proud. I was frustrated, my b/f was frustrated: he thought I was going to quit, I knew that quitting wasn't an option no matter what, and so the last five miles were brutal. A true lesson in perseverance. Needless to say, I don't think my b/f will ever run a race of this distance with me again. Yet already, I'm thinking about the next one. I want to beat the ghost of my poorly run first half-marathon. I want to beat that bitch but good.

Fin.