Last year after finishing the 13.1 Marathon NY, I got an email with a limited-time offer to run the race in 2011 for a really great price — $30. Those of you familiar with half marathon race fees know this is a steal. A typical half marathon can run you anywhere between $50 and $150. It was a no-brainer for me to sign right up.

And then I got injured. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of that fun story for the details.

About a week before this race that I backed out of,  I got an email through my blog contact form from a reader. She said, among other things:

Your final race, Race to Deliver, was actually my first race! And now, I’m training for my first half marathon, the 13.1 Marathon in Queens on April 2. I really identified with your article because although my birthday won’t fall on the day of the half as yours did, another special anniversary will – it will be 21 years since I had open heart surgery at age 3. To think that I’ll be using my patched-up heart to pump myself through a half marathon is really amazing.

Rachel’s story was son incredible and our situations oddly similar — including our clear shared love of the em dash — that I asked if she would be willing ton write a guest post.

This is a big deal because I never had a guest post before, since I think I am the most awesome so why dilute that with someone else? But in this case, I am sure Rachel will inspire you as much as she inspired me. Enjoy.

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Rachel’s Half Marathon

It’s been exactly one week since I ran my first half marathon and if it weren’t for the dangling medal hanging in my bedroom window, I would have to keep reminding myself that “Yes, that race did happen. Yes, you finished it. Yes, you ran the whole thing.”

A few weeks ago, I read Dori’s NBC GO Healthy NY article, How I Got into the Greatest Marathon in the World. Her piece about running really resonated with my own running story.

I am a recent Manhattanite, having moved here in August to attend graduate school at Columbia University. I had been running fairly regularly over the last two years, but never more than three miles and always on a treadmill, despite the fact that I was then living in beautiful, lovely, oh-how-I miss-your-weather California. I ran just because it was something I knew how to do, and because it was difficult, painful, and often tedious (especially on that treadmill), so I figured it must be good for you, right? But when I came to Columbia, I finally got sick of the dreadmill. Our campus gym has no windows, and one day, I realized that I could be running in Central Park—like that scene in Marathon Man—instead of trudging along here like a hamster.

So I did; I circled around the reservoir imitating Dustin Hoffman in his best running form. But then the leaves started changing colors, and having lived in California my whole life, I never really saw these explosions of yellow, orange and red. I decided to ditch the reservoir and explore the rest of the park. Checking a map, I figured out a route that would total my typical three miles. But I got lost, so I ended up running nearly five! Five, really? I thought it was impossible to do more than three miles. I also kept getting lost, so my mileage kept building without my knowing. (The perks of a bad sense of direction!) Finally, I decided to just go for the six-mile loop. Not only did I finish it, but it wasn’t that bad—especially when I could people watch, look at the city’s architecture and admire the changing leaves. But even as the leaves left and the frigid temperatures set in, I continued running. Ironically, I have now run outside more in New York’s nasty weather than I ever did in California.

So eight weeks ago, when my roommate asked if I wanted to do a half marathon with her, I was all on board.

Actually, no, I wasn’t.

The six mile loop was one thing, a half marathon was double that. Oh, and it was the end of February and spring was nowhere in sight. I surely couldn’t double my distance in fewer than eight weeks without getting injured or frostbite. But when she registered for the race, I felt like I was missing out and I realized it might actually be fun training together. So I signed up too. We simply did two days of shorter runs and then added one mile each week to our long run. We both felt pumped, until our twelve-mile runs, which we did separately and went poorly for each of us. Moreover, the week before the race, I got slammed in school. My thesis needed heavy editing and I was under intense pressure to pass a foreign language exam to get my degree in May. I bombed a practice test for the exam two days before the race, so that by the night before, I just wanted to get the run over with. It had become another dreaded thing on my to-do list.

The race, though, was anything but another to-do; it was simply fantastic. The 13.1 Marathon race had a smaller field than  NYRR races, which made for a less intimidating atmosphere and also made interactions with the spectators more intimate. My roommate and I were actually running a bit late that morning. The 7 line had service issues, making our trip to Queens slower than we intended. We ended up rushing to check our gear and use the bathroom before the race. We made it to the back of the race line with just a minute or two to spare.

Being late though ended up taking my mind of the fact that I actually had to run 13.1 miles. (And the rush to use the restroom beforehand forced me to get over my major phobia of port-o-potties.) I thought we would get a bunch of disapproving glares from the seasoned runners when we arrived at the back of the corral. But no, everyone was smiling and excited! They were taking photos with friends and instead of stretching, they were dancing around. The DJ at the start line put on Michael Jackson, and all of the sudden, I just felt ready to move.

My roommate and I started off at a decent pace. We used our cell phones to get a rough idea of our pace, but we ever intended to make any sort of “good time,” we just wanted to finish. This was a personal distance for us, so any time would be a personal record. We each had a couple rough patches–my roommate’s hip was bothering her sometimes and at one point, my left ankle and right knee were aching. But we just kept going; one of us would talk about school or our summer plans, so our minds would be on that topic and not on the specter of running so many more miles. The spectators were great and would shout out our names, which were printed on our bibs. We saw some girls with Columbia sweatshirts and we yelled back, “Yay Columbia!” (I always have to refrain from saying my undergrad cheer, “Go Bears!” Still haven’t figured out what Columbia’s chant is.) The music stations also helped, and I’d say the hardest part of the course was the long loop around the lake, where there was no music and huge mud puddles. My roommate would say, “Time to ford a river!” whenever we got to one.

Surprisingly, we ran the entire race! We’d always taken at least a stop or two at traffic lights during our training runs, so it was awesome that we ran the whole thing. At mile 12, we picked up our pace and at mile 13, we went to a fully powered-Usain Bolt sprint. Some guy screamed to his friend, “Let’s do this!” at the last .1 mile, and being adjacent to the guy, I felt the need to obey. Ed. Note.—Remove “at the last .1 mile” from that sentence and you’d have an accurate description of my sex life.

Running that last bit was an ecstatic moment, almost an out-of-body experience. Am I really crossing the finish line? Did I really just run 13.1 miles? The end was so thrilling that I questioned its reality. My roommate and I high-fived each other after we crossed and giddily grabbed our foil wraps and medals. I was eager to grab that medal and my roommate was excited about the wrap. She had received medals from 10Ks before, but never a wrap! She kept saying how it was a status symbol. (I just think of those wraps as the earthquake safety blankets that us California kids were required to have in our school emergency kits.)

The celebration at the end was great–including disco dancers, guys with disco balls on their heads, and a bear. We also made decent time, considering we weren’t thinking about time at all: 2 hours, 22 minutes and 14 seconds, a 10:51 pace, only about a minute more than my 10K pace.

Besides having my roommate by my side, what got me through those 13.1 miles was thinking about how many other things I have accomplished in my life, and how many other things my friends and family have accomplished. One thing that I frequently thought about was how twenty-one years ago, at the age of three, I had open heart-surgery during the first week of April. (I was born with a ventrical septum defect, which is basically a hole in your heart.)

My heart has always been my main reason for exercising. I’ve never really had to exercise to lose weight—I’ve just always wanted to protect my cardiovascular health. Ed. Note.—As EVERYONE should.

As ridiculous as this sounds, when I crossed that finish line, I thanked my heart for being so good to me over the last twenty-one years and for doing a stellar job throughout that race.

When my roommate and I returned from Queens (and yes, we wore our medals and foil the whole subway ride back), we showered and celebrated with diner food. Then, I headed to the library and took another practice exam. Filled with new confidence, I performed much better on this test. For me, there was nothing “half” about this half marathon—it imbued me with a fuller sense of self-esteem that I know will power me through these last weeks of school.

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How amazing is Rachel’s story and her half marathon!

Check out my new NBC NY post Dori’s Quest: Bari at The Bari Studio — the studio screams NYC and is a new take on the typical barre-class.

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