NYC Marathon Weekend Recap

Sunday morning Laura and I got up bright and early, fueled up with bagel breakfast sandwiches and headed out to spectate the NYC Marathon.  We started in Brooklyn around Mile 7.5.  We were able to see the pros run by, which is pretty amazing.  I don't think I could run that fast for 50 feet, even if I tried really really hard.  I don't understand how they can do that for 26.2 miles.

I also made some signs and this is the one that I held up at Mile 7.5:

After seeing several of our friends run past us, we headed to the Upper East Side to watch at around Mile 23.  We were able to see a lot of the same people that we had seen in Brooklyn.  I have to say that we had a much easier way to get from one point to the other (the subway versus foot!).  I had made a second sign to have at Mile 23:

I got a lot of comments and points and laughs at my sign, which was really fun!  I really did my best to cheer for lots of the runners that went by.  Obviously, people who had their names on their shirts were easiest to cheer for and it made me realize that I really want to have my name on my shirt for my marathon.  I'm going to work on that.  If anyone has any idea where to buy iron-on letters in NYC, please comment!!

I also made a rule about cheering.  If you're wearing headphones, I'm not going to cheer for you.  It's a waste of my breath.  I know that some people think that they can't get through running without them and I know that a lot of people were hurting at Mile 23 (saw several people in tears), but I still wanted to cheer for people who I thought would have a better chance of hearing me!

After cheering for about 5 hours, I headed home.  It was getting cold standing out there (although it was probably the perfect day for running) and I also needed to get my own run in.  I decided to avoid all the craziness of the Park and headed over to the Westside Path.  I ran south and used my same drinking fountain and Gu plan that I'm hoping to implement during the marathon.

My run ended up being 12.8 miles, but I took the first Gu around Mile 3 because I was feeling hungry.  Then I took the second one around Mile 8.  I think it worked out perfectly because I ended up having a really nice run.  I don't know if it was because of the cooler temperatures or if I was inspired by the Marathon runners or what, but it was just a really nice run.  Although since the time changed, it was dark really early, which I wasn't a huge fan of!

I have to say that watching the Marathon made me both excited and nervous.  I'm excited to be doing it myself.  Seeing people crying made me really hope that I don't look like that at Mile 23.  Mostly I'm just excited to prove to myself that I'm capable of doing this!

Running
Time: 2:14:24
Distance: 12.80 miles
Pace: 10:30/mile