ING New York City Marathon - RunMarathon

I am glad to have had the chance to run this marathon because it is so big. There was crowds on the entire course except some of the bridges. That said I faced alot of frustrations. I was placed in the 5:15 finish group at the start. I was able to move up to the 5:00 finish group by the start line. This just put alot of traffic between me and my goal of 3:40. From mile 4 until mile 16 I was forced to stop and walk at each water stop (every mile) because the traffic was so bad. NYRR really needs to stagger the start better or widen the course by putting the water tables on the sidewalks not the 2 lane roads. For the first 16 miles I was also forced to sprint from opening to opening and never really got a steady pace. This caused my HR to be a bit higher at the beginning of the race than my HR plan had allowed for.

Start about 10,000 people up in the group that was running my pace.

traffic


For such a large event I really expect much better organization. The UPS bag drop off was chaios, the traffic was bad, the post race was a disgrace. It took me 45 minutes to get through the finish coral and about 25 mins before they would give us our "goodie bag" which consisted of a bottle of water, a bottle of gatorade, an apple, and the worlds worst bagel. Since it took so long for us to get water people around me drank half the bottle in one gulp and then threw it up. I probably saw at least 40 people throwing up water in the overcrowded coral.

Don't get me wrong the experience is a once in a lifetime opertunity and is amazing to soak in the atmosphere and excitement. NYRR really needs to go to a well run event like the Marine Corps marathon and take notes. I am glad to have done this race, and definitely recomend to anyone, but I really do not foresee myself running it again.