Half assed

Today was the annual NYC Half Marathon - one of many half marathons in the city, but the only one for which they close a significant portion of midtown and the West side and the only one that runs through the heart of the city: Central Park, Times Sq, and down to Battery Park all the way on the West Side Highway, passing Ground Zero among other things. The only way for us mortals - i.e. not professionals or people who qualify for races with having super fast half marathon or marathon times - to get into this race is through a lottery. All the races in the city are capped since the roads just can't take that many people. For the marathon, they start the race in 3 waves 30 minutes apart, and even so, the 45,000 or so runners blend into one never ending river running down the streets. In any case, a lot more people want to run these races than there is room for in the city. This is particularly a problem this year; running has become newly trendy.

I can definitely understand the phenomenon. It hasn't even been 5 years since I started running - it's going to be 5 years in June at the NYRR Mini Women's 10K, which was the first running race I ever participated in - so I am pretty sure I am still a beginner and I am one of the people who just newly discovered the wonders of running. However, for me it was love at first sight. Or first run, I guess. I ran that first race - bib number 6709, which I still have taped to my desk, as a reminder - without any expectations or plans. And then I just got hooked. Signed up for more races, started training more like a real runner, with some real goals, distance or time-wise. Soon, I was looking for a half marathon to sign up for - Brooklyn Half - and then the only logical next step was a marathon. After my first, I just got more hooked, I immediately wanted to prove that I could do it again and I could do it better and faster. I know that there are many others like me out there, hooked for life after their first race. In the past few years, these races have been getting a lot more attention around the city, particularly with the NYC Marathon being so popular. It seems that almost every other person I talk to these days says that it's one their goals in life to run a marathon. Which is great, don't get me wrong, it's really great, in fact, it's so wonderful that more and more people are discovering how great running is. But come on, there is no way that every other person is going to run a marathon one day.

So here is why I am upset: I know at least 2 people personally, who have made it into the NYC Half by playing the lottery, and then never bothered to train for the race, and then didn't even bother to run it! I am not even talking about the ridiculousness of the system, how people from out of town had something like 8-fold higher chance of being selected from the lottery, and people from outside the US were nearly guaranteed entry. That's not their fault, it's because NYC desperately wants tourists - like we don't have enough already - and NYRR desperately wants the higher entry fee from foreign entrants. It just baffles me how many people do things half-assed. It's not just about running races, in general, what's the point of giving just minimum effort when others would love to have the chance to try their hardest? I suppose life is just unfair like that. And in many other ways, but that's for another time.

Standing there in Central Park on Sunday morning in the freezing cold, cheering for some of my half-assed friends - who at least made a very good effort to run and finish the race - there was nothing I wanted more than to be in the crowd of runners. Oh well, not this time, but I'll be there in 2 weeks and even though we won't run through Times Sq and there will be no roads closed for that race, Central Park will be filled with thousands of women proud to be running and I'll be there among them!