The final race of the New York Road Runners’ (NYRR) 5 Borough Series has come and gone. The Staten Island Half Marathon was last weekend and it had runners running along the north eastern shore line of Staten Island. This race brought great views and some tough challenges to it’s participants.

As always with races put on by the NYYR, there was an extremely well organized bag check for all runners to store their belongings before the race, plenty of bathrooms to use, and some great music playing before the race as well. NYRR coaches spoke out on a PA system about the race and got runners pumped to run 13.1 miles in Staten Island. I was surprised that there really wasn’t much in terms of a pre/after party going on like usual. There was music playing on a PA system and some randomly placed cornhole games hidden along the side but other than that there was only the 9+1 NYC Marathon bell for runners to ring. Maybe I missed where things were but that also means that they weren’t exactly easy to find.

The Staten Island Half had 9,975 runners cross the finish line (5,548 men and 4,427 women) and registrants received a great long sleeve tech shirt with the race logo on front and sponsors on the back, a post race recovery bag with various drinks and food, free race photos provided by Game Face Media, and a beautiful medal that NYRR members could get engraved with their name and race time.

The Staten Island Half is a large out and back (with some minor turns that bring you back to the original route) that starts on Bay Street, below Slosson Terrace, and continues straight on Bay Street for the first two miles of the race. At Mile 2 1/2 you make a turn on School Road and then follow Lily Pond Avenue to a big downhill to Father Capodanno Boulevard. Once on Father Capodanno Boulevard you reach the flattest part of the course. This is a great time to open up your speed as you continue straight down to the 5 1/2 mile mark where you’ll make a u-trun back towards the start. Continue straight ahead until you hit Mile 8 and the toughest part of the course. That wonderful downhill you ran at Mile 4 is now a huge uphill at Mile 8. This is a long hill. Find a comfortable pace and keep those legs pumping. Don’t push harder than you need to. You don’t want to tire yourself out. After this hill, you turn left into Fort Wadsworth and make an inner loop before coming back onto the original route. Going through Mile 10 you start coming up to some of the amazing views of this course. As you approach you get a great view of the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge and the water on your right. You pass under the bridge and will soon find yourself back on Bay Street. Turn right onto Hylan Boulevard, then left onto Edgewater Street before reaching the Mile 11 marker. As you approach Miles 12 and 13 you’ll have some beautiful views of the NYC skyline and Upper Bay on your right. Be careful though as there are a few rolling hills in this area of the course that come out of nowhere and can be tough. After a few more turns you’ll find yourself once again back on Bay Street. This time you’ll continue straight on down all the way to the finish near the U.S. Postal Service building.

There were definitely some challenging parts to this course but all the same I had a fun time running this race. There was a good crowd of Staten Island residents who came out to support the runners but there were pockets where there was nobody and it was up to you to keep your spirits up and legs going. The pace runners were great and had amazing communication with runners before and during the race. Since this was an out and back style course, you got to see the elite runners go by as they raced for the win. That is still such an amazing sight to see. Speaking to other runners, it seems that this race isn’t for everyone but I recommend runners check it out.