New York by the Mile

New York was such a great run! I am very grateful to all that offered their encouragement and support. A special thanks to Tiff for all the moments of support on all those many days I had "a quick training run" to go do. I also wanted to thank the tremendous Jack Finnegan for putting me up in his Brooklyn pad. He's in the midst of an ambitious project with City Love song (his show) and if you can, give him a little help.

Here's how the marathon weekend and run went.

Friday:
Arrived in New York and Jack treated me to the "best jerk chicken" in New York. Well fed, we hit the town and actually walked most of the island of Manhattan that night. awesome conversation and great company.

Saturday:
The adventure to get to the Expo. Pretty smooth, but again a ton of walking. I secured my bib, my bag, and my ride to the start. They set me up on the 6am Staten Island Ferry. I was just glad to get the start transpo taken care of. Jack took me to an fantastic local Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. In true marathoner spirit, I ordered 2 dinners and was able to crash by 9pm.

Sunday:
In order to get from Brooklyn to the SIF by 6am, I had to get up at 4am. that in and of itself, wasn't bad until you later see what time I started actually running. I was out the door by 4:45am and at the Ferry by 5:40am. The Ferry and bus to the Start was pretty cool, it helped that the sky started getting light while on the boat. I arrived at my particular starting village at 6:50am. I had nothing to do but check my bag, eat a couple bagels, a Powerbar, and drink a large amount of complimentary Dunkin Donuts coffee. Having unlimited DD coffee was a fantastic perk on an otherwise very chilly morning in the shadows of an intimidating bridge, The Verrazano. I was called to my starting corral at 9:40am and had to shuffle around a bit to make sure I got into that start.

Miles 1-2:
All bridge. I was on the lower level so had no idea when we got to the top, but the views were fantastic. Very crowded and I was bent on not going out too fast so I got passed, A LOT on the bridge.

Miles 3-9:
Seriously, these were so much damn fun. the people in Brooklyn were the best! They were rowdy and very supportive. It was a surprise each time the mile markers came up. The pack was moving comfortably and not real troubles on the course.

Miles 10-15:
It was starting to feel a little surreal that we were still in Brooklyn. The people were great still, but you knew you had 3 more boroughs to get to. When crossing into Queens it felt good. The people in Queens were also fantastic. The legs felt strong and the conservation seemed to be paying off. To avoid the wall, I was very determined to refuel and do everything I could. This included a salt packet and baby aspirin at the start and another salt packet at the halfway point. The salt packet (from In n Out by the way) @ 13.1 was sadly a little empty. Rounding the corner before mile 15 and seeing the buildings of Manhattan coming up was encouraging. It was also exciting to see what one of the big bads of the marathon was going to be like.

Miles 15-19:
The Queensboro Bridge was unanimously touted as the hardest part. It was a good, long incline but not so tough. I know I trained in Colorado, but it wasn't so bad. Actually, the steady up through Manhattan began to wear me down. The people were great too. The route was very wide though and while I was in a pretty decent groove, the crowd support was vital by this point. I had to run towards the fringe and enjoyed it. I started to feel the miles but not too bad.

Miles 20-22:
The Bronx were fun. It felt good knowing I was on the next to last borough. The few and proud out to support were great. My legs were feeling good and I was starting to feel like the wall may not be as bad. I popped a Jolly Rancher I brought from work and quickly found out where the rest of the salt had gone. At that point, a salty, blue raspberry hard candy was actually friggin fantastic!

Miles 23-24:
Great reserves in the legs, but weary of burning out in the infamous final 6.2miles I wanted to hold back still. Loved the crowds. I began pushing faster limits when I was open.

Mile 25:
One mile to go and deep in Central Park, it was time to let loose everything I had left. I actually had a lot of leg left. With runners at a slower pace I gunned it on the outside. Now I know in Minneapolis, I thought I was flying and actually was running normal. When I had a chance to finally check, I was on a 6:45/mi pace. It felt so good to cross the line so strong.

Again, thank you! I finished at 4:15:37. Damn proud of that!