Over the weekend I finished my final race to qualify for guaranteed entry into the 2012 NYC Marathon!  To say I am excited would be an understatement.  As I’ve talked about before, any New York Road Runner member who runs 9 qualifying races in the course of a year and volunteers once gets entry into the following year’s marathon.

I ran 53.7 miles in total to secure this entry.  My pace ranged from 9:56 to 11:03 per mile.  Here is the breakdown of the races that got me here:

1.       Fred Lebow Classic -5 miles (January 8^th)

This is false actually.  Because of an impending storm, the race was moved from a Saturday to a Sunday and unfortunately, Christina  (my fellow 9+1’er) and I drank too much the night prior to actually run the race.  No worries though because since the race was moved, it still counts as a qualifier.  In my book though, that is lame so I will run an extra race (or 2!) this year so I qualify in my own book as well.

2.       NYC Half Marathon- 13.1 miles (March 20^th)

Whoa.  My first half marathon.  I was severely undertrained yet ran because I there was such uproar over entry into this half.  There was a lottery held as too many local runner wanted to run and I believe only 12% of local runners were accepted in the lottery.  I was one of them and felt compelled to run.  I am so happy I did as this race was awesome and really made me see how much I can accomplish when I put my mind to it.

3.       Scotland Run-6.2 miles (April 10^th)

Kilts!  Um.  And Kilts!  This race was hard for me.  The 10k distance challenged me and I actually started walking towards the finish line until I dug deep and forced myself to run it in.  This time of year should have provided me with a good finishing time but it was awful.

4.       NYRR 4 Miler- 4 miles (April 23^rd)

No sponsor, nothing fancy, just 4 miles.  This 4 miler reminded me how tough mile 3 is in the NYRR 4 mile course as I made my way through the rolling hills. 

5.       UAE Healthy Kidney 10k -6.2 miles (May 14^th)

This wins as my worst race of the year.  Why can’t I run a decent 10k?  I run the same loop of the park every time I run 6 miles so it’s not  like there are any surprises.  Seriously frustrating.

6.       Celebrate Israel- 4 miles (June 5^th)

We celebrated that this was the fastest race finish of my season.  This does not say much.  It was run in a 9:56 pace.  Um.  Yeah.  It actually says a lot.

7.       NY Mini 10K -6.2 miles (June 11^th)

My favorite race of the season!  All women and the first mile is run on Central Park West so finally get some time out of the park and amazing support from the running clubs for the entire race. Not that this made me run faster.  It didn’t. 

8.       Gay Pride Run – 5 miles (June 25^th)

My second favorite race of the season although the switched up the course this year and added counter clockwise Harlem Hills.  Sooooo, that was interesting for mile 1 & 2. Again, the argument could be made that THIS IS MY HOME COURSE.  But, apparently I don’t run it enough to dominate it.  Need to get on that.

9.       Central Park Run for Conservatory – 4 Miles (July 16^th)

Finally, the last one.  I ran it on a sprained ankle. It was glorious for the first two miles where I was on pace to blow my PR away my practically 2 minutes.  But then the hills hit, my ankle reminded me it was injured, and I limped into a sad 10:05 pace finish for my second fastest race of the season.  On a sprained ankle. 

+1 Portugal Day Race (June 19^th)

Volunteering was awesome.  I would recommend anybody do it just for the reminder of why you run.