There were over 7000 runners in this race! The most challenging part was getting out of the chute. For whatever reason, no one really payed attention to the signs that were placed in order to group people by time/split. As a result, the beginning was a mess. I felt sorry for the walkers at the beginning as they were stampeded. It must have taken 45 seconds just to reach the starting line. It must have taken another 10 minutes to be able to run in a comfortable stride. It kind of felt like that old OJ commercial where OJ was running and hurdling over people. I was zigging and zagging, bobbing and weaving with the best of them. When I got to the first split my heart sunk when I saw that it had taken me 9:30 to reach the one mile marker. :-( I did have negative splits from that point on but the damage had been done. I did not reach my goal of breaking 30 minutes. I finished in 31:10. The venue was beautiful; Jones Beach was amazing. Running with my colleagues was also enjoyable. We had a killer corporate tent!

For my warm-down, I sat my butt down in the corporate tent and enjoyed many of the fine foods and items available :-)


1000s of other participants and brutal heat limited my ability to perform faster. I am sure that the extra 30 pounds around my waist and my genetic predisposition/inability to run faster than an 8:30 split had nothing to do with it!