Stornoway Running and Athletics Club
PB for Jim Bruce In New York Marathon 2006
Hi team,
I had a good race, and finished in a PB of 3.22.37.
I got myself correctly positioned at the start, and only took about 1.5 minutes to get over the start line once the gun went off. The first mile took 8.45 because of the crowds, but the muppets who started ahead of their correct position soon fell away, and I was able to put in a few fast miles to catch up my plan at the 3 mile mark, ie steady 7.30 minute miles. I had to resist the temptation to increase the pace, it was easy running. At the 10 mile mark, I was bang on target, but decided to keep the pace, as long as I was feeling comfortable, and didn't slow down to 8 min miles. Going over the Pulaski bridge in Brooklyn, I passed the halfway mark, realising I'd just run a half marathon faster than any of my Heb 3 races this year. I was still running so comfortably at the 16 mile mark, I increased the effort to take on the gradient of the Queensboro bridge into Manhattan, where the noise of the crowds hit me like a rock concert, compared to the quiet mile over the bridge.
Heading North thru' Manhattan, I was still doing 7.30 minute miles when I saw Robert & Jenn cheering me at the 17.5 mile mark. Robert had been receiving emails from the Race Tracker website to his mobile, so he knew exactly where I was. Another 3 miles North, "Welcome to the Bronx" the loudspeaker blared, or maybe she wasn't using a loudspeaker. Great stuff. I was slowing slightly to keep comfortable as I passed the 20 mile mark. I started to feel optimistic, because I was 8 minutes faster than last year at this point, but much more significantly, I was still running fairly comfortably. Back into Manhattan, Harlem was fantastic, and I was able to enjoy it.
Suddenly it got cold as I headed South down 5th Avenue, as the tall buildings shut out the sun, and I was pacing myself to see Robert & Jenn after the 24.5 mile point in Central Park, hoping I could find them in the crowd. No problem, it was great to see them, and I ran across to speak to them - basically I wanted to know if Robert was picking up the Race Tracker alerts, which meant that my times were being tracked in the website. There's a 10 second movie of a happy Jim on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsXcqISEqIM taken by Jenn. Only two miles to go, and I was beginning to slow down, but knew I was on for a PB. When I got to the One Mile to Go mark, I started to push it, but had some breathing difficulty, so backed off, deciding it was better for me to enjoy the moment, rather then hurt myself for the sake of another minute.
It was so noisy going through the final mile, I could just about hear the dozen or so cries of "Come on Stornoway!" from spectators. I saved enough energy to jump in celebration as I crossed the line. Running is good fun, after all.
My official time was 3.22.37, finishing 2,911st from 38,368. Amazingly, I was 48th of 1681 in my age group (Male 55-59).
I appreciate all the support I got over the months of training, especially in the last few weeks, and from Robert, Jenn, Allan and Colin on race day. Thank you!
Jim