The Ocean Air DOES Make Me Faster! -The New Jersey Marathon recap

"Disclaimer: I received free entry to the New Jersey(Half)Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRavePro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!"

Did someone say PR?! I still can’t quite believe that I PR’d two races in a row. And at the New Jersey (Half) Marathon, it was a pretty big one. New Jersey was a new state to cross off my list in a bid to run all of the East Coast states. I’ve had this race on my calendar since November I think and I’ve spent 18 weeks training. With that being said, I still can’t quite believe it’s over!

I decided to make a long weekend out of the race, since I live about 5 hours away. I drove down on Saturday morning and promptly went to packet pick-up. I was SO impressed with the volunteers and how smoothly the pick-up was. I was in and had my bib in hand within 3 minutes. I’ve never had a packet pick-up go so quickly! Plus, everyone was so friendly, which helped.

After getting my packet, I took it easy the rest of the day, hydrated as much as I could, and watched the Formula 1 qualifying before I went to bed.

 

Asbury Park-nice views for the end of the race! 

Everyone warned me about how busy the start line parking could get and all of the volunteers said “It opens at 5am! You should probably get there then.” Well…I couldn’t commit to being there that early, but they definitely scared me into waking up a little earlier than I was planning. Anyways, I left my hotel and drove to the parking lot…and hit no traffic at all. I sailed right into a parking spot by the porta-potties (score!) and waited in my car for about 45 minutes until I decided to go inside.

At this point in the morning, it was raining pretty hard and I was getting nervous I’d have to run in the rain. I generally don’t mind rain, however it’s super tough to run in it with glasses (and no, I don’t want to try contacts). I had my BibRave Pro visor, but wasn’t sure how it would hold up against the deluge of rain. Luckily, it all slowed down to a drizzle and by race start it had completely stopped. Lucky us!

I waited in a VERY long line for 30 minutes for the indoor bathrooms and decided with 45 minutes to go until the race there was no way I was going to make it to the front of the line (yeah, they were that long!) so I ventured outside to the porta-potties. After another wait I was set for the race.

Everything at the start went off without a hitch and I was on my way. I felt a little sluggish at the first mile and decided to let my legs warm up. After about 1.5 miles I felt okay and just went with it. I was clocking splits that I didn’t even think were possible for 1 mile, but I kept hitting them after 2, 3, even 9 miles into the race. With 4 miles to go I started to get a side cramp, but I knew if I kept up even my slow pace from the beginning of the race I was going to hit a MAJOR PR. So I slowed down slightly, had some Nuun, and went for it.

With about 1.5-2 miles to go we finally turned into Asbury Park and the boardwalk, which was really fun, but also really windy. I didn’t quite expect that wind after a relatively tame/calm race, but there it was.

With a mile to go I was passed by the eventual winner of the marathon, who started 5 mins before me. That’s a 5:20 mile for anyone who cares. CRAZY! He was just flying. There was no way I was going to catch up to him, but I decided that if he can run that fast after 25 miles, I can go a little faster after 12. So I did. And I clocked an official time of 2:15. My watch said we actually ran 13.4 miles, which would put my 13.1 at about 2:13. But I’ll go with the official time I suppose.

At the beginning of training I was chasing a 2:22 PR from my very first race. I still can’t believe or wrap my head around lowering my time by 7 (officially, or 9 if you go by my watch) minutes overall. I AM SO EXCITED!! I had to get on Athlinks to make my PR official on my profile! And I LOVED that the race actually teamed up with Athlinks to make it super simple to claim your results. Athlinks is an awesome way to track all results for your races, and I always use it to figure out what goals I should shoot for next. I definitely suggest creating an account and claiming your results too. Share your Athlinks profile link in the comments below and I’ll follow you!

Currently, my next race is in September. It will make 10 half marathons for me total. I like the sound of that!

-Happy Running!