spin / second sole multisport team

People who know freshman SSSMST member Patrick Kolozvary, know that aside from being handsome, intelligent, and friends with The Most Interesting Man In The World….he’s also a talented runner. So for much of 2010, Patrick (and his significant other, Erin) have been building their run fitness as they prepared to take their talents to the east coast and the New York City Marathon.

Both put together excellent races en route to new personal records. It’s not every day you can show up to race and beat over 43,000 other competitors. Congratulations guys!

Read through for Patrick’s report.

PK –

After a long build up, one of my main races of the year finally was here.  I was feeling pretty good leading up to this race, but I continually reminded myself that so many people say NYC is not a place for a PR (too many bridges aka hills, too many people, lots of turns).  So I figured, I may as well try to just have a solid race.  We stopped at the expo on Friday & we waited in a line of over 2,000 people just to get our race packets, this event is all about crowd management.   We met Bart Yasso and Matt Long at the expo (look up his story, its quite inspiring)

Race day, Erin & I caught a cab at 5 am to get to the main library to catch a 5:30 bus out to Staten Island. We quickly met up with our buddies Bob & Sandy in the dark.   One thing about these “major” marathons, is there is a lot of waiting prior to the race.  Our heat did not start until 9:40, so we basically waited for over 3 and a half hours in a military complex.  For as many times as Aaron Rood told me to bring extra clothes, I still sat there shivering until the sun came out. About an hour prior to our start we dropped off our bags & headed to our corrals.  Basically we sat in a cage for a while, then they move you up to the actual start.

As the race begins I tried to go out conservatively, but there are so many people, I spent the first couple miles weaving through runners. There was amazing scenery, everywhere…NYC harbor, skyline, people pissing off the bridge (runners not bums).   The thing about this race is just how many spectators line the WHOLE course.  Out of 26 miles, I would guess only 4 miles had few to no people cheering (mostly because of bridges).  Spectators are shoulder to shoulder & 2 people deep for most of the race, incredible. The volume of runners on the course is unbelieveable as well.

I was a little bit ahead of where I wanted to be time wise, and my bladder had been bothering me so I finally had to stop about 12 miles in.  That cost me about 30 seconds.  After some long awaited relief, I got back on track, but I had to stop again just before mile 15, this time probably closer to a minute was lost. The only good thing about stoping was that we had the last big hill (bridge) and  it didnt phase me because I felt like I had just dropped an anchor.

As I crossed the bridge in to Manhattan my Garmin went out, we were on the lower deck below a lot of metal & concrete.  This would end up messing up my splits for the next few miles.  Damn technology. I was warned by many to hold back once I entered Manhattan, the crowds are overwhelming from mile 16-18, spectators are 6 people deep on both sides of the road, unreal. It was difficult to hold a steady pace, not just because the crowd noise, but other runners start picking it up & playing to the crowd. Just an amazing scene.  As we headed up to the Bronx, I knew 2 of Erin’s friends would be there waiting (they took us on a tour of the course on Saturday, which was a huge help).  Its always great to be able to break up long distances in to manageable chunks, so seeing them was a huge lift.  After a quick assessment, I was feeling pretty damn good.  I tried to pick up the pace for the last 4 miles, and I was able to a bit, but I think 80%+ of the people were slowing down significantly.  I felt like I was flying once I got to Central Park, I passed a ton of people, which helped keep me fired up.  At mile 24 I knew I wasn’t going to break 3 hours, but I knew I would be close to a PR, so I figured I would empty the tank.  I ended up 3:03:53, a new PR.  Erin ended up at 3:28:02, a PR for her as well.  More notably we both beat the Chilean Miner, Al Roker, and Jared from Subway.

We walked forever to get our bags, but with over 45,300 runners, I expected it to be a debacle. I met a lot of cool people before & after the race, since there is so much down time.

Just an incredible race, I recommend it highly.  The support that the City of New York gives is phenomenal.  A big thanks to everyone that gave us advice leading up to the race, especially Rood, it was a huge help.

Filed under: 2010 | Tagged: gazelle, kolozvary, marathon |