Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.
Dean Karnazes
This past weekend was the inaugural South Brooklyn Slog, a 26.09 mile run through the best of New York’s boroughs. The race this year was exclusive – only my good friend Jake and I ran. But the invite is wide open for next year. As the race name and paces below indicate, we’ve got a lot of room for improvement. Training encouraged, but not required!
Stats:
Mileage – 26.09 miles
Pace – 9:18 min/mile
Total Time – 4:02:39
Elevation – 459 feet (could it be any flatter?)
1st Split – 8:14 min/mile
Last Split – 11:48 min/mile
The Course:
We started in DUMBO, running along the water in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Then we made our way east, up Union Street through Carroll Gardens and Park Slope and into Prospect Park. We ran counterclockwise through the park, to its southernmost corner, and then straight down Ocean Parkway to the Coney Island boardwalk.
From there we connected to the Shore Parkway path and the Belt Parkway Bike Trail, ran under the Verrazzano Bridge and then back north on 4th Avenue, through Sunset Park, past Greenwood Cemetery and into Gowanus. Our last stop was in Red Hook before retracing our steps through Brooklyn Bridge Park to the finish line – ice cold Gatorades from DUMBO Market.
The Race:
We got started by 7:30am, with the temperature around 60 degrees. The sky was clear, the park was relatively empty and, after a few bathroom trips each before heading out, our stomachs were calm.
The first three miles of the race were familiar territory, since both of us have run to Prospect Park together on a couple of occasions. The “slope” in Park Slope felt steeper than usual to Jake, and I sort of agreed. Some mornings you notice it, others you don’t. But beyond running about 400 feet of our eventual 539 feet of elevation (again, could this race be any flatter?!), the initial leg was a breeze. Conversation flowed.
The next section is usually the easiest of most marathons: the jumble of miles you cover after your muscles have loosened up and before they start to complain. On this route, that means the eight-ish mile stretch between Grand Army Plaza, at the head of Prospect Park, and the Coney Island Boardwalk, pictured below:
This section brings you all the way to one of my favorite New York landmarks – Avenue Z in Brooklyn – and it is flat and fast running, which, with our training level and personal goals (FINISH), meant roughly ~8:30 pace.
The run along Coney Island included our first unscheduled bathroom stop. Note to anyone attempting a similar run: toilet paper is non-existent in the Coney Island bathrooms, particularly during COVID and particularly in November. I cursed my decision to throw away the wad of toilet paper in my running backpack, and decided to just hold it. Sometimes nature calls, and other times she kicks down the f*cking door, and thankfully this was not the latter.
At MCU Park, where the New York Cyclones play their games, we left the boardwalk and ran north on 17th Street until we saw signs for the Shore Parkway path, a waterfront strip of asphalt that runs from Coney Island all the way to the top of Bay Ridge, a distance of about six miles. We were still feeling pretty good, although somewhere along the way my legs began to feel stiff and we started to slow down a bit. We were in 8:45-8:50 pace territory at that point.
The path is dotted with fisherman and one had just pulled a giant fish out of the river as we ran by. I’d always pictured those guys catching little sunfish, just for the fun of it, but this thing was bigger than a football and was definitely headed for somebody’s dinner table.
At mile 18, right before heading back into the streets of Brooklyn, we stopped for some water, salt tablets and GUs. The salt tablets might be placebos, but I swear they’re the reason my legs don’t get sore the following day. They’re also the only way I know to keep the water from sloshing around in my stomach, although with the temperature in the mid-60s we each drank less than twenty ounces throughout the entire run.
After mile 18, we slowed down considerably. We were back on city streets, and had to weave around pedestrians and stop at a bunch of crosswalks. Plus, by that point, our feet were definitely dragging. Jake was dealing with some back pain, and had fallen into a drafting position – I could hear his footsteps close behind me, following along and keeping pace, which at this point had ballooned into the 9:00-10:00 minute range.
It’s worth pointing out – this was neither of our first marathons. I’d run a handful by that point, and a few races of even longer distance, and Jake and I had run the Steamtown Marathon together a few years back. So we were lucky in that, even with our slowing pace and aching joints, we knew for sure we would finish. It was just a matter of when.
So it was with that self-confidence that we jogged miles 18 to 20, shuffled miles 20 to 24, and then trudged the final two, ending on the cobblestone streets of DUMBO at a pace barely above walking.
But! Our goal was clear from the beginning: To finish and to have fun. And that we did. We were left without a finish line photo, but this one from Steamtown is plenty:
