100 Races and Counting

Hi all, The Queens Half Marathon was a very special race for me. It was my 25th Half Marathon and my 100th race overall!! I started running on February 18, 2004, by running 1 minute and walking 1 minute for 20 minutes on a treadmill at the gym. I ran my first race on April 24, 2004 – the Brooklyn Half Marathon. I had no idea how foolish it was to try a half marathon just 2 months into running, until I was standing at the start and people were staring at me incredulously. I survived that race, finishing about 42 minutes faster than I’d expected to! And went on to run my second race – the Queens Half Marathon – just 3 weeks later. Don’t worry – I’m not going to recount all of my races here, but I have made a list of the first, slowest and fastest times I’ve run each distance (except the funky ones) and listed the total number of times I’ve run those distances (including the funky ones). I would tabulate the chocolate treats for you, but they’re just too numerous to count!! There were lots of slushy Dr Peppers, too!

Enjoy!!

The chart should be attached. Let me know if it doesn't make it.

Random stats:
The slowest and fastest half marathons were both run on the same course (clockwise around Central Park)
First out-of-town race:
Woodbridge Valley Association 10k (7/4/06) – set a PR (since beaten) in 58:06 (it was the first time I broke 1 hour in a 10k)
First cross-country race:
Henry Isola XC Classic 4M (9/4/05) – 43:15
Favorite race – Disneyland Half Marathon
Favorite local race – NYC Half Marathon
Race closest to my home – Coogan’s Salsa, Blues and Shamrocks 5k (1.83 miles)
Race farthest from my home – Arctic Circle Marathon in Rovaniemi, Finland (3,935 miles)
Weirdest distances: 2.9M*, 4.7k**, 3M*, 3.2M*, 4.8M**, 18M
Not including the first race at a given distance: I set 1 PR in 2004; 5 PRs in 2005; 6 PRs in 2006; and 8 PRs in 2007 (so far).

These are distance PRs and do not include either the course PRs or multiple PRs set for the same distanceI celebrated at a chocolate tasting. The pictures are at http://chocolate2007.snapfish.com/snapfish. You can get to them by logging into snapfish with runnerakalalynx@yahoo.com as the login name and myspace as the password. The password for the album is myspace.

Thanks for all your support!!

*Mismeasured courses that were supposed to be 5ks – almost 50 years and NYRR still can’t measure a 5k course correctly
**NYRR Anniversary Races – the distance represents the year of the anniversary