I started off well my legs felt pretty good and begin the climb up the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. No more than 2 minutes into the run a woman in front of me trips and falls down on her face. I stopped and helped her up, checked her out and she was ok and we both continued to run. I lost the woman from Ct as soon as we started. The bridge was packed with runners and It was slow going until I hopped up on the median of the bridge and took off passing people like crazy it was so much fun. As we exited the bridge and entered Brooklyn the people on the streets were playing music,banging on pots and pans and yelling "Welcome to Brooklyn" it was awesome. Around mile 3 I was already feeling pain in my quads and I thought to myself this is going to be a long day. I decided to try to distract myself by slapping hands with all the kids on the side of the road, I was getting down real low for the little ones and they loved it but, not as much as I did. Around mile 6 I hear someone say "hey you" and it was the woman from CT again. We ended up running the next like 10 miles together until I had to slow my pace down a bit. I lost her on one of the bridge climbs and then caught up to her again on the way down...I was just letting my legs go freely on the way down the bridges. We came into Manhattan and ran up 1st avenue for what seemed like forever and then up and over to the Bronx. I loved the people in the Bronx, they had tons of energy and by that time I needed all the pumping up I could get. The time in The Bronx was short and off we went through Harlem. I saw this one guy decked out in a lavender pinstripe suit..it was awesome. As we started heading south on 5th ave I was working hard to not slow down too much, I wanted to keep my pace for the entire race somewhat consistent. Finally we entered central park and by that point I knew if I could run two 8 minute miles I could go under 4 hours! I began to pick up the pace but just could not get moving quite fast enough. As I was running through the final corner I cold see the finish...it was time to fire up the jets and make my final sprint to the finish...my mind was saying go go go and my body was saying no no no! I had nothing so I just continued one foot in front of the other and finished my 1st NYC Marathon!

Nothing

I walked through the park and got some water and gatorade then I picked up my personal belongings bag and called G to find out where she was. I had text messages and voice mails so I listened and read them. Jeff(Q) called to see how I did so, I called him back and we talked while I made my way out of the park and to the Natural HIstory Museum to meet up with G. I had to call G again to find her I was in such a fog I forgot where she said she was going to be. After we met up I decided that I wanted to walk back to the hotel to keep my legs from cramping up....turns out that was a good idea even though it took forever!


Running the Marine Corps Marathon 7 days earlier!


This was a great experience for me, I loved the course. I am so excited that I had another marathon PR 1 week after doing MCM. I was not sure what my body was going to do but it held out for me and mentally I was very strong. I will apply for the lottery again so I can try to run it again next year! I love NYC and being there with my G was as always a great weekend.