The weather forecast listed the chance of rain for Saturday as 100%. But how bad could some rain be?

I find it hard to sleep when I know that I have to wake up early the next morning for something that I can’t miss, like a flight or a race that I’ve been training for for months. I woke up a few times in the night.

I woke up at 5:00AM, got dressed, and headed out the door. The rain wasn’t even that bad, I didn’t even need the poncho that I bought at the dollar store on 5th avenue.

I was meeting my friend Fred at 5:45AM in Prospect Park by the carousel so we could walk over to the start. We walked over to Eastern Parkway to a throng of runners covered in various forms of plastic. The rain was coming down and I had my poncho on. People were all in warmer clothes than I was. Some people taped bags around their feet. A couple of people actually ran in them. (I saw one barefoot guy and he passed me, so, I’ll refrain from sneering.)

There was a line of UPS trucks waiting to take the the bags that people were checking. We checked Fred’s bag and then… waited. We stood under a tree as the rain started falling harder.

And so began the period of race regret in which we both started thinking let’s just get this damn thing over with.

Waiting sucked. We were in the last corral. Fred could have been at the front but he chose to run with me, which was very cool of him to do. Everyone was shivering. There were thousands of people in front of us. I got a few texts from my girlfriend and my friend Josh and ducked under my poncho to read them. We waited in the corral from 6:30 until the start of the race at 7:00AM. Then we started the slow trudge toward the start line as everyone went before us. We didn’t actually start running until 7:40AM.

I was worried that I wasn’t prepared or I would have a bad day or I would just not be feeling it but once we started, I felt great. I trained all around Prospect Park and that’s where the first seven miles were, so, it felt like I was on my home field. It was awesome and Fred was timing us and knew our pace as we ran.

Then, after mile seven, we started the straight run down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island and that’s when I started missing the twists and turns of the beginning of the course. Around mile 10, I had to start mentally tricking myself. “Okay, man, you can stop at mile 11. Alright, now you can stop at mile 12…”

Fred kept pulling away from me and I kept catching up. He’d pull away and I’d catch up. He was keeping a good pace for us. Finally, we got to Coney Island up to the boardwalk and I used everything I had left to get across the finish line.

My goal was to break two hours. I broke one hour and forty-five minutes.

After that, we went to Purity Diner and I ate chocolate chip pancakes and then I slept for four hours.

So, when’s the next half I can sign up for?