The Brookyln Half

On Saturday I spent the entire day in Brooklyn and it was a blast. Four of my coworkers ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon along with two friends from high school and one from college. There were two waves of the race, 7:00 and 7:45, which meant I had to leave my apartment at 6am to get to Brookyln in time for the first heat. That meant I needed all of the coffee. 

After careful analysis of the map I figured the best place for me to first see the runners was at the 5k point and while I was waiting for the first of my coworkers I watched the leaders run by. They guy in the red shirt won the race , Abebe Duki of Ethiopia,  with the crazy time of 1:05:01 – that is crazy fast! 

I had not been to Prospect Park before and while the race did a three mile loop throughout I stayed on the outside perimeter to make sure I could see the runners in as many places as possible.  However, it was quite picturesque and reminded me I need to cross of number 16 on my 101 on 1001 list, exploring Prospect Park, soon! 

After seeing friends and coworkers at the 5k mark and the 7 mile market I jumped on the subway to head to the end of the race. I learned as I got off the subway at Cooney Island, as many runners were finishing, the Brooklyn Half is the largest half-marathon in the country and there were over 40,000 people registered to run on Saturday. After growing up in the suburbs and living in the city for three years I am surprised I have never been but it was a great reason to go.

Between listen to my audio book while watching the race and constantly updating the live tracking on my phone the battery died around 11am. This resulted in five hours of hanging out at Cooney Island at Nathan’s on the boardwalk watching friends celebrate with corn dogs, bacon cheese fries, and copious amounts of beer. As I did not run I resigned myself to a regular hot dog and a small glass of prosecco. Around noon everyones phones had died and the conversation was surprisingly refreshing with no one glued to their phone. 

As you can see in the photo above copious amounts of beer were consumed by the eight people in our group, especially considering a small was 21 oz. and a large was 32 oz.  At one point I did go explore a bit of Cooney Island and realized I do have to come back, especially when the Ocean is open!

Congratulations to all of my friends who ran and to the 25,000+ other finishers!