Well, I’m back on the horse, as it were.
Only an hour from Manhattan, the Monmouth County Park System hosts a marvelous half marathon, called the E. Murray Todd Half Marathon.
A friend and I decided to run it as my first half marathon back since rehabbing through 2015.
If you follow these posts, you’ll know how excited I was to get out there.
A Typical House that we ran by on this run.
So, an early Sunday morning trip out to Horse Country it was for us.
No traffic, no stress, no waiting in a corral (all these horse puns, gosh) like we do in all the NYC races.
Just a quick shot to Lincroft New Jersey to the Brookdale Community College Campus.
Which, by the way, is an amazing campus – definitely nicer than any other community college I’ve ever visited.
I can’t help but send you a link to all of the homes available.
Seems like $1-2mm gets you a pretty piece of land and a nice house …
Painless arrival, waiting in the nice warm gym until 15 minutes before the race, and a casual stroll to the starting line.
Our conversations with the locals were standard fare.
“Oh, yeah, we run this one every year” (it’s a 40-year-old race).
“Watch for the hills.”
My friend and I looked at each 0ther.
We’re accustomed to hills in Central Park, but hadn’t given much thought to the hills in this race.
“Yeah, they’re not rolling, but they are tough.”
Uh oh.
Fast forward to the race itself: I’ll ruin the ending by saying that the hills really were not bad at all.
By the time a hill started to get annoying, we would reach the top of it.
The last three miles were flat, too, which was another nice feature.
Really, the loveliest part of the race was the greenery and farms we got to run by.
Only 750 people ran, so lots of space, and lots of trees.
Here’s the link.
No traffic, clean air, amazing green everywhere.
We connected for a couple of miles with a runner whose wife looks after the horses on a particular farm we ran by.
He pointed out his wife and friendly dog along the way, and the farm that Bruce Springsteen surreptitiously purchased (just past the “Laird Road” sign on the map).
He then left us in the dust, but we didn’t mind…
You get the idea. Lots of land.
This is a terrific alternative to running the NYC Half with 25,000 of your friends, if you’re so inclined to leave the city for the morning.
The cops couldn’t be nicer, nor the volunteers!
I HIGHLY recommend it.
Yes, you have to go to New Jersey for clean air and horses.
Quite a treat!
More running blogging to come, now that I’m back in the saddle.
Gosh, another horse pun … Have a great month.