2013 Brooklyn Half Partaaaaay!

I'm back!  The last few months of wedding planning overwhelmed me quite a bit.   I had trouble making time for many things, including blogging.  I now have a ton of material from races and other activities over the past few months to keep me going for quite some time.

I'll come back to that later though.  I wasn't going to start the blog back up until next week.  Then I went to the Brooklyn Half Pre-Party to pick up my packet for tomorrow's race.  This is not the same race it was in 2011!

The Brooklyn Half was my first half marathon so it will always hold a special place in my heart.  When I ran in 2011 there wasn't much fanfare around the race. NYRR pushed it as a celebrate Brooklyn event with a Coney Island party after the race.  Other than that, it wasn't so different from any other NYRR race.  Packet pick-up was at the NYRR HQ, there was one wave for the race start, and no finisher medal.

For 2013, NYRR has pulled out all of the stops!  Packet pick-up is taking place at the Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo.  We stopped by on Wednesday night.  The setup was very cool.  For those of you not familiar the Tobacco Warehouse is an unroofed 1 story brick structure with large open "windows" near the waterfront in Brooklyn.  It is open to the public as a part of Brooklyn Bridge Park and is usually empty except when hosting events.  NYRR gave it a transparent roof, had a DJ, and plenty of decorations to make the space feel completely different and well themed for Brooklyn Running.  Even if you're not running the race you can stop by to check it out.  The party continues today from 10 am until 9 pm.

T-shirt pickup area

New Balance was there selling Goods.  These treadmills belonged to JackRabbit Sports, who also had representatives and goods for sale.

What more could you want?

At the information counter, Alek and I donated money toward Hurricane Sandy relief and received a Brooklyn Half poster as well as a few temporary running tattoos with quips including "Run your meatballs off" and "Outrun the Subway".  I plan to sport one of the tattoos for the race tomorrow; photo coming on Monday!

Poster for a donation

race shirt with reflective NB on sleeve

Outside the Tobacco Warehouse the tattoo phrases were projected onto the wall above food trucks.  We had plans after the party so we didn't eat food truck food while there.

There will be two start waves for the race.  I'm in the first wave, which needs to be in the corral by 6:30 AM.  The second wave, where my new husband will start, needs to be in the corral by 7:05.  I'm not much faster than Alek, so I'll have about a half hour to cheer at the finish.

Based on the pre-race experience, the race itself will have to be more fun than it was 2 years ago.  Maybe simply because of additional excitement from the build up but I also expect more effort to have been put into on-course entertainment.