Long Island Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I like this race. I wish I could love this race. As I've said before, it is great to have a half marathon (and marathon) 10 miles from my house. It is also the only event I know of on Long Island where it seems like the whole community comes out and gathers. Anyway, the run itself was great. It was a beautiful day for a run and the course is nice and flat. I set a PR and felt like I pushed the entire time. The question I continue to have is why the race has to take place through the least attractive part of Long Island. We live on an island and have miles and miles of shoreline. Yet for some reason this race goes through the most industrial least-scenic part of the island. For example, instead of running through parks for a good portion of the race, we run around them, along highways and parking lots.

Run just a little faster.

Walked around, ate the contents of the post-race bag (banana, orange, crackers, bagel) and a bottle of water, found my family, waited in line for my finish time (wanted to see if I beat 1:50), and walked forever to the car. This race is organized but not particularly well organized. For example, the start and finish are way apart from each other which requires finishers to hike back to their cars along and across freeways.


Ability. The aid stations seemed a little overwhelmed - they were filling cups as fast as they could give them out and the Gatorade seemed to be in short supply (I took water at a couple of spots where a few gulps of Gatorade would have been very welcome).


Great day, fun race, nice crowd (at the finish). After running the full marathon last year and enduring the lonesome 10 miles on the Wantaugh Highway (nobody for miles), it was fun to run the half this year and be in constant contact with other runners for the whole race. My goal was to break 1:50 and it kills me to have missed it by 3 seconds. Next time!
One random thought: why is County Executive Ed Mangano's name on everything - the t-shirt, finishers medal, etc.? I've never run another race where a politician puts their own name on the race swag.