New York Marathon

My girls on the ferry to Staten Island

I have reached a point where I genuinely feel bad dragging my family places to watch me run a marathon.  I realize that there is usually a big expense and sometimes there is not much to do while I race for several hours at a time.  That is not the case for New York; as a whole, our family loves this city.  I surprised my wife the year before by taking her to this place for our anniversary and she was hooked ever since.  There is an inexhaustible amount of things to do and places to see in this metropolis.  That was also a key pitfall in this race.  We arrived a couple days early in order to take in some of the sights and culture of the city.  Every race has lessons to learn both for good and bad.  One key lesson for a destination race is to wait until after the race to do sightseeing.  Over the two days before the race we had walked all over the city from Central Park down to the World Trade Center and back a couple of times.  With the mixture of being tired from walking and eating a less than ideal diet of local fare, this race was destined to turn into more of a "fun" run instead of a race.

 

Meeting Apollo with my daughter

Up to this point I can honestly say that this race is something that I wish everyone could experience at least once in their lifetime.  There were roughly about 50,000 people that lined up at the start line for this race along with countless volunteers and spectators.  As far as running a marathon goes, I consider NY to be the super bowl and Boston to be the all star game.  There are so many extras for this race that are not possible elsewhere.  One unique example is a phone app. that allows you to track any runner at all times during the race.  This was awesome because my wife new where I was at all times and could be and specific spots to look for me on the course and also time when and where to meet at the finish line.  I also had lots of friends tracking my progress from all over the country while simultaneously comparing my race with various celebrities like Dean Karnazes, Apollo Ohno and Mario Lopez.  Another factor that I was not used to was running with a never ending pack of people.  Every race that I've ever ran eventually thinned out where most miles are spent in solitary periods with only a handful of others within sight.  With New York, the field of people continued in a tight group from start to finish, it is pretty exciting.

 

 

The spectators in NY also add another unique element to the race with the sidewalks being packed tight and folks hanging out of their windows yelling and cheering like madmen.  I remember even on a couple of occasions when I stopped to walk from exhaustion and got cussed and yelled as a unique form of motivation. "Don't F*&^#n' walk this is a F#@$%n' marathon" I was not offended but found it rather humorous.  Two other signs that I got a kick our of said "Running won't kill you, you'll pass out first" and "If running a marathon was easy, I'd be doing it" which was held up by a extremely overweight male.  I honestly believe that the people here take a lot of pride in this race and showed it with their enthusiasm.  Crossing over from Queens into Manhattan was the most amazing display of the entire race, thousands of people were packed on 1st Avenue and gave such a loud roar of encouragement for the runners that it felt like running into a thick wall of sound.

On that day, I did not run anything close to what I would consider a good time.  I finished in 3:39:29 due to fatigue from the day before and severe foot pain from wearing new shoes that were tied extremely tight but overall, I was happy to have finished and count that one for the record books.  I walked away with some aches, pains, bloody nipples and a finishers medal then headed straight to the airport just in time for the flight home before heading out of town the next day for work. 

 

The following day I awkwardly limped into the hotel lobby in Blytheville, Arkansas to check into my room.  The lady at the front desk asked what was wrong with my and why was I walking funny?  I then told her about running the NY marathon yesterday; her reply was pretty humorous " Doesn't running that far hurt?" I said, "yes, but only if you do it right".  I get asked the question "why" a lot.  I told my wife about this blog and even got the same 3 letter question too.  One day, I shall grow old and become feeble, my memory will fade and begin to fail in unison with my body.  I can always look back at the pictures, medals and this blog to remember.  Even after my body is laid to rest and the world continues on with my departure unnoticed except for a few friends and family, I can look back with out regret.  I got to enjoy a few brief moments away from the busy rat race of life and actually live.  Running these races has allowed me to see and experience things that others will not.  It is not that they are not capable of doing so, many people can do what I have done and possibly better, but the majority will choose just not to even try.