The Bronx Half.  My desire to tag along with other runners as a way of staying motivated, is the only reason I ever stepped foot in the Bronx a few years back in the first place.  That was the fateful event which led me here…to this blog…with Dave.  It was a blind date of sorts, meaning, we were set up as running partners by my neighbor David T., who is an incredibly talented, fast, type A runner.  He, upon arriving at the half marathon, literally dumped Dave and I to line up with the elites…while we were left to sit and try to make conversation for an entire 30 minutes.  Thankfully, we hit it off, sharing a mutual lack of the Spanish language, despite our Cuban fathers, a distaste of talking to complete strangers ( which we were forced into) and a love of all food and drink.  Not to mention a past spent in the same clubs seeing the same bands, and growing up in towns next to each other on Long Island.  But I digress…….My first point here is that I remember that chat, sitting on a somewhat clean grassy hill, sun shining, and a very pleasant parking lot only feet away from the starting line.  Well, that was a different Bronx half than what I experienced yesterday. 

The Road Runners no longer offer a parking lot for the thousands of runners driving into the BRONX.  (I’ll try to guess how many runners there yesterday actually LIVE in the Bronx. None. that’s my guess.)  Anyhow Pietro and I (new running partner also with immigrant parents…. more on that later) were forced to drive around the race area looking for spots.  I squeezed the Beetle into a slightly illegal spot next to a pile of garbage and dog shit 3 feet high.  But then, that was the case for every spot, and every inch of sidewalk. While walking to the race, a huge rat casually walked past us…looking up at me pretending to be a bunny and wiggling his nose.  He seemed to own the block.  The weather was warm..but there was something kind of unpleasant about it all – long, smelly toilet lines, very humid…too warm for February, and despite the sun, there were mean, looming clouds lurking about.  

My “strategy” was to do this thing as a fun run – just to get in the miles….(not like me, but hey, I’m carrying some extra desserts and bottles of wine around my middle these days)  So we lined up in the front third of the pack and went out pretty easy. All the usual freaks were there – the running lighthouse, the jingling Asian man with the boom box…. The course though, which I was very familiar with, having run it twice, was totally different then I remember.  I had this constant sense of “where the hell are we going” throughout.  In typical Lori fashion, I chatted too loudly to Pietro about inappropriate, disgusting topics, like my pooping habits.  (which reminds me – I actually left one on the course – a first perhaps…in the porto-potty!)  The run was okay until mile 7, which was on the glamourous “Grand Concourse”.   Around then I started to become kind of irritable, and the sun was too hot.  Everything was annoying me…the loud Puerto Ricans, the dirty water stations, the gross smells…. stuff I normally don’t mind.

To wrap it up – the end felt harder than I wanted it too….we started with the negative splits though, going from a 10 minute pace down to 8, and maybe a mile under that even.  We spent the last 2 miles not speaking, just running at a good clip.  Our time was 2:06.  Right behind us was Mary Wittenburg!  Obviously toning her time down a bit these days.

On the walk back to the car we saw more dog shit than I’ve ever seen concentrated in one place.  I’m thankful Pietro came with me (he wants the highly gay Grand Prix patch I believe) and put up with my complaining and blathering on about anything and everything.  Got in a good run – but I’m coming away with a little anger at the Road Runners for making me deal with so much unpleasantness.  Let’s face it: I’m a running princess.   Next time give me a parking space and a croissant at the end.