It’s funny – Syracuse is only an hour and a half from where I live, however I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 24-48 hours in the city. I’ve run the half marathon there the last three years, hence the reason for the trip this weekend. This time was no different either, getting into town on Saturday at 1:30, and leaving by noon on Sunday, but since the other half was able to tag along, we happened to venture around the city a little more than I normally would do on my own.. Typically before this race I’ll stop at the outlets along the thruway so I check out Under Armor’s deals and charge the car a little bit, run out to packet pickup for the race that I’m doing, grab lunch or dinner with my uncle that lives in town, maybe hit a brewery or something along those lines that’s unique to that area, and then just go back to my hotel room and watch a movie or something. This time we hit a neat little shop filled with prints, salts, and the like, as well as stopping into a fantastic brewery, ‘Talking Cursive’ – I’m sure you can figure out who picked which stop (side note, I usually do not go for lighter beers, but these guys had some of the most flavorful pilsners I’ve ever had).
Right across the street was the Niagara Mohawk building (now a part of National Grid) – a piece of the city that if I had ever seen it before, I just hadn’t paid attention to it.
The run itself went fairly well given that the city had gotten pummeled with snow two nights before – the streets were still pretty icy and slushy, with only a few sections that had been cleaned up to pavement, luckily one of said sections was an extended downhill stretch that had aided in making up some lost time. This race wasn’t on my original list for this year, but a friend of mine had committed to making this her first half marathon, so I opted in. With a time of just over 2hrs, for the conditions, I couldn’t complain – I had a target time of 1:45 that I’d trained for, and really felt confident that I could make, but after losing my footing in a couple of places almost wiping out, I decided that staying vertical and finishing was going to be the better route. I have a small handful more runs that I’m signed up for this year through the summer and fall – there’ll be plenty of time to hit that 1:45 mark this year.
Roving On 