March was a busy travel month for me, both training- and work-wise!  On March 12th, we had our first 21-mile training run, which went better than I’d expected.  Very early the next morning (oh, how I loathe 7am flights), I was off to the tech/music/film conference SXSW in Austin, Texas for almost a week.  It was a crazy trip!  My coworkers and I worked our company booth during the day, and from 6pm until 2am every day there were “networking” events that included an almost unreasonable amount of free alcohol and live music.  Not that I’m complaining…. 😅

The following Friday, it was off to NYC for the weekend!  My coach at the Muscular Dystrophy Association was able to get me a spot at the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon on March 20th.  I figured it would be a great opportunity to get in a training run that would simulate what Marathon Monday will be like.

Of course, it was also an excuse to enjoy the city for the weekend, including catching a Broadway play (which I do whenever I visit NYC).  This trip’s play was Fiddler on the Roof.

A friendly couple offered to take my photo.  The one downside of traveling alone – it’s hard to get photos of yourself!

The half marathon itself was pretty crazy (in a good way!)!  It’s absolutely massive – over 20,000 runners.  Runners were organized into three waves based on their estimated finish time, which is also how Boston is organized- though with four waves instead of three.

The course was fun to run as well!  We started in Central Park, close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and circled the park before running down through Times Square.  (Fun fact: Times Square is closed to traffic only twice a year.  Once for New Year’s Eve, and once for… you guessed it… the half marathon!)

The longest and hardest part of the race was the almost 5-mile stretch along the West Side Highway down towards Battery Park.  It was long, straight, and the skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan barely seemed to be getting bigger as I ran.  The race organizers try to make this stretch seem more appealing by claiming that you get to experience “beautiful views of New Jersey,” which is quite possibly one of the most inaccurate marketing taglines I’ve ever come across.

But I crossed the finish line in the end!  Hit a new half marathon PR at 1:37:42, which averages out to just under a 7:30 min/mile pace.  I was rewarded with a medal and a gift bag of food that included… *cue groans* … a New York apple.