I ran a half marathon in New York City's iconic Central Park on Saturday. My brother and I ran along the park's loop with 400 runners. This was my third half marathon, but the first in nine years. I turn 30 in September, so my body is much different now than it was when I accomplished half marathons in college. While I'm no running expert, I did learn a few lessons throughout my training and the race itself.
If you're training for an upcoming half marathon or you just want to read about someone's tortuous few months running distance, here's three lessons I learned from the race.
Train with water
Whether you're running a half in the spring or summer, I think it's super important to train with water. Meaning, during long runs, bring water with you! I invested in a water bottle running belt to bring with me. Because my race was on August 2, I trained in peak summer weather. It was not enjoyable and I needed a lot of water to remain healthy.
On race day, you'll be met with constant hydration stations, and you want to be prepared for those! A friend of mine ran the Brooklyn Half last year. While training, she didn't bring water along. But on race day, she stopped at many hydration stations. By the end of the race, she had too much water in her stomach and ended up throwing up.
It's okay to walk
This was a hard lesson for me to learn. I thought that to complete a half marathon, I needed to run the entire time. When I ran my first two half marathons, I never stopped running. But, while training for this race, I found myself taking little walking breaks during my long runs. And after a while, I learned to not feel guilty about that either.
Come race day, I had to walk. And that's okay! The race went through the upper half of Central Park, which is known for its hills. And while I trained with hills, the sheer amount of these were difficult for me to master. So, a few times, I slowed down and caught my breath before starting again.
Create a killer playlist
During training, I listened to podcasts on long runs. I would get lost in the world of the episode, whether it was a celebrity interview on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard or a deep dive into culture and politics on Diabolical Lies. On shorter runs, I listened to music – think Charli XCX or Doechii.
For race day, I created a long playlist filled with all the hits. I listened to songs from the Wicked movie, from my youth like "Untouched" by The Veronicas, and that made me wanna keep going, like "Motivation" by Normani.
I never once had to reach into my running belt for my phone to switch songs, because each and every one was a hit.