New York City Marathon 2022
Took me a month, but finally got this penned down, for the history books.
How I got here
NYC Marathon was something that I had been shooting for since my days in college, when I had begun to do the ballots. Of course, unfortunately I have not been lucky with gaining the odds, so when New York Road Runners (NYRR) started introducing the guaranteed Virtual program (i.e. running a virtual marathon the year ahead to gain admission to the following year), I jumped at it. Even that took me more than one try — I remember only recalling the signup midway throughout the run, and holding my phone to wait for the queue to be my turn.
NYC Virtual 2021
This was one whereby I ran 105 laps around the NUS Track to complete, just barely 3 weeks after my Munich Marathon, because I had to clock it in. Was a crazy thing that I will never do again, but it was one for indeed one for the memories.
Training Cycle
The buildup for this NYC Training Cycle — I would probably say started only properly in July. Had issues trying to get back into training after Enschede, sorting out some niggles so one important lesson here was to give yourself ample recovery time post-race, especially after a tough race.
One significant breakthrough though, was the ability to now train 2 sessions of track workouts weekly. This was important to me, because there was the shorter and faster reps on Mondays, and also the threshold intervals on Wednesdays, which really helped to build marathon fitness based on my past experiences. In both aspects, I think I had improved tremendously, with my 1k reps on Mondays consistently hitting the 3.30s range now, and at the peak of it all, running 91–92s for Wed sessions (~3.50/km pace).
Planning this ~16–18 week cycle, I had earlier wanted to follow a more rigorous plan that delved into the day-by-day, but quickly realised that it would be hard to follow through, with the demands of every work day. But the key was to trust the training process with the Shufflers with the Mon and Wed workouts, and slotting in a decent long run to go along with it. The LR intensities weren’t too ambitious, I mostly ran within the range of 5.05 to 5.20 pacing. Likewise the distance wasn’t overly ambitious — listening to Anna’s advice and training guide, I had mostly kept my runs to around 2h30mins, which translated roughly into a 30km distance (at the 5min pace).
Leading up to the race day
Due to work and study schedules of my fiancee, we had to slot in our travel component in California ahead of the New York journey. This presented slight issues with (i) potential fatigue, and (ii) poor nutrition. Notably, a few days leading up to race day, we received this email from the organising team.
The race-day forecast is for unseasonably warm and humid conditions. At its warmest, the weather could reach the mid-70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius). Today we’re writing with two messages: One, we want to share guidance for running in warm weather; and two, we want to share what we’re doing to help support you.
Quite frankly, when I saw this, I dismissed the severity of such a warning, because I lived in hot and humid Singapore, and honestly the low 20s were still quite alright weather, much cooler than in Singapore. Unfortuantely, I couldn’t have been more wrong. More on that in the next segment.
All in all, thankfully there wasn’t that much fatigue I don’t think, and I managed to sneak in a final confidence boosting session at the UCLA track (which was gorgeous). Also managed to get some great carb loading food in NYC on the eve of the race.
Pre-race travelling
Given that this is a point-to-point race, covering the 5 boroughs, we needed to travel down to Staten Island to start the race. There were two ways possible — either by bus from Midtown, or by the Staten Island ferry from the southern tip of Manhattan, and then bus over to the starting village. Given that I was living with my brother in Queens, the Midtown option was much more enticing. Additionally, I wasn’t too keen on having the need to move around (from ferry to bus), and potentially not having a seat.
Either way, the pre-race in itself was a marathon (took longer than me running the race). An advice I would give for future participants would be to perhaps leave slightly later than they had signed up for, since they didn’t quite check the bus timing you had signed up for. I had signed up for the 5.30am bus so I woke up at around 4.20am to prepare and take the subway over to Midtown, reaching at around 5.20am. It was just a long orderly snaky queue leading up to the many buses. Boarded the bus at around 5.45am after moving through a very long line.
The bus ride was pretty uneventful — tried to get some sleep in but gave up after a while and just enjoyed the peaceful NYC scenery across the bridges. Got to the race village at around 7.00am, a whole 2 hours ahead of the starting time. So I chilled around, and got myself a Dunkin’ beanie (sorry I couldn’t keep it though), and slowly chewed on a bagel since there was plenty of time to digest it there and then.
We started going into the holding pen almost an hour before the start of the race, which involved yes — yet more waiting. Decided to get changed into my Vaporflys and chuck the excess jackets around 20mins before, as we started slowly getting corralled onto the bridge to witness the singing of the national anthem, and the start of the male elite flag-off, which was shortly followed by our start.
Race proper
One of the most important advice that was handed down — through YouTube and runners who have gone thru NYC is to hold your horses at the Verrazano Bridge. Now this was basically an entire upslope for the first KM gaining about 150ft, so it was best not to try and bust the legs for, and I took great care not to get sucked into the energy and anticipation of waiting for so long before the start. Stuck behind the crowds and gave a very conservative ~4.28 first km, which I was quite happy about. Now, immediately after that I just let the legs roll down the hill and it was fairly flat thereafter until the 5km mark, so the pace just shot up real quickly. Ended up keeping way below the sub3 mark for this first segment.
Passing the bridge also meant the entrance from Staten Island into Brooklyn.
First 5km splits (4.28, 4.04, 3.55, 4.08, 4.08) — 20.52
Brooklyn took up most of the race in actual distance, and I believe we exited Brooklyn only immediately after the HM mark.
The next 5km was fairly straightforward, with plenty of crowd support along the streets of Brooklyn. Crowd energy was high, and the elevation was rather flat, so it was quite easy to keep the momentum that I had set up in the past few KMs. Definitely felt that I could keep this up at this point, so I guess I decided to just try to keep going with where I was at without wasting energy throttling down the brakes unnecessarily.
As we continued deeper into Brooklyn, the crowd support continued to be strong. However, there were a bit more gentle rolling hills at this point, and knowing that I still had a long way to go, I decided not to push hard in those segments, and allowed myself to naturally roll back the pace when I had a downhill to capitalise on. That explained the slight slowing down on 13/14km, but immediately catching up on the 15th. All was good at this point.
Moving into the next few KMs, I continued to feel decently well, though I didn’t try to push hard when I saw the splits slow down a bit further at some junctures. I figured that I had already done sufficiently to get a buffer at this point, and also experience some early signs that I might not have much to push harder as well at this point.
As we exited Brooklyn on the Pulaski Bridge, I crossed the HM mark, barely coming underneath the 1.30 mark which will get me on track to sub-3. The uphill of that bridge however forewarned what was about to come later in the race..
6km — 10km splits: (4.08, 4.08, 4.07, 4.05, 4.17) — 41.45
11km-15km splits: (4.10, 4.11, 4.19, 4.21, 4.11) — 1:03:09
16km — 20km split: (4.18, 4.26, 4.22, 4.14, 4.21) — 1:24:59
HM: 1.29.51
Now, this marathon was also quite different from most of the past marathons that I have ran, mainly because I had to go through the race on my own. After crossing the HM mark, I knew that I was venturing into Queens territory, which was where my dad, brother and fiancee would be waiting for me by the streets. This was quite a good distraction from keeping tabs with the pace actually, since I was really just always looking up along the sidewalks rather than looking down at where my pacing was.
Had managed to give instructions to be on the “left side” so that it would be easier for me to spot them, although I did wonder if they knew from which perspective I was referring to (haha). Well, thankfully they did get it, and managed to catch me somewhere around mile 15 I believe. Definitely passing them was a huge mental boost and brought much smiles on my face. It was also around at this point where I was still feeling quite strong, so they captured some really good-looking photos, and where I was still on track for the sub-3.
However, shortly after we turned away and begun on the ascent towards Queensboro Bridge (which was a hella long ride again, like the Verrazano Bridge), I knew there was trouble. Running in the lower deck of the bridge meant we were sort of like in a vacuum, without any crowd support. It was cooling yes, but dark and moody. Some people had begun to do brisk walk instead of running at this point, and some first stitches had begun to hit me. Definitely a “shit” moment here, and I had to stop for a quick stretch, which explains the 25th km split here.
21km — 25km split: (4.21, 4.27, 4.17, 4.36, 5.24) — 1:48:00
We were greeted quickly by the roaring crowds as we exited the bridge off to First Ave. Much as the crowd support was invigorating, I found it hard to click back into the pace I had managed to go previously. But at the same time, it was also pretty tough to walk for prolonged periods of time, because it felt like you were disappointing the crowd support that would shout and cheer you on. I also told myself that I had to still put in my best, and while I had already revised my goal off the sub-3 target, I was still very much in the driving seat for a PB. I tried hard to get myself back into the pattern, and there was some partial success in the earlier phases (seen in the 28/29km splits), but right after that the stitches came back again, and I had to drop back to a slow pace yet again.
26km — 30km split: (5.05, 5.01, 4.28, 4.23, 5.36) — 2:13:01
Crossed into the Bronx via the Willis Avenue Bridge, the crowd was of course roaring hard. The Bronx segment was relatively short, and there were 2 bridges to clear (into Harlem), so unexpectedly the splits here were not anything to be proud of. At this point I guess I had somewhat already accepted what my body was capable of, and I was really just trying hard to envision the finishing line, and trying not to have too poor a split at any KM.
31km — 35km split: (5.16, 5.14, 4.59, 5.22, 5.20) — 2:39:39
This last “home-stretch” before going into Central Park was mostly along 5th Ave. By now, there was really a whiff of the finishing now. Pain was pretty much written on everyone’s faces, and it was really just how much you wanted to give in to the pain. I recall a cramp already starting to build up in my right leg, but I knew it was going to be worse if I decided to slow down. I recall just chugging drinks at every aid station, and finishing my last gel somewhere in this 5k segment.
36km — 40km split: (5.06, 5.24, 5.22, 5.09, 5.11) — 3:06:16
We entered Central park somewhat slightly before the 40km mark. I wasn’t quite sure if my family would have made it to the finishing line, but I definitely was hoping to see them for some added energy again. Found them after we “exited” Central Park at its Southern perimeter where they shouted out to me. Thanks to that, I tried to change course to greet them and had the right leg cramp up big time immediately afterwards. A nice stranger passed me a pack of used ice that he was done with, and that kind of helped me trudge through the last bit. Didn’t manage to get too much of a sprint at the end, since it was an uphill, but I think I still managed to jog strong and finish up with a decent split.
41km — end split: (5.00, 4.58, 4.50) — 3.17.36
Parting thoughts
I will be very honest in that I was disappointed I didn’t perform to where I thought I could, but well, I guess sometimes you just don’t draw the cards right and in this case I certainly wished the weather was kinder.
But all things considered, New York is definitely the A race for everything the world of marathoning has to offer. It is not the biggest race for nothing. I would definitely recommend serious runners to get here at some point for the crowd experience and the enthusiasm of the New York people, although I wouldn’t necessarily be so enthused about the whole race logistics (of getting to the start point etc).
As I recollect my 15th M experience, I am thankful for the opportunity and am looking forward to giving it my best at the next upcoming race in Tokyo.
