My Big Run

So the New York Marathon. I don't even know where to start really. It was as amazing as I imagined it to be, from the vibe of the city, the organisation of the event and the crowd. It was my life dream and although it didn't go as planned it was still one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Arriving in New York I felt like I was with my cult. There were people in active wear EVERYWHERE. People running up and down the streets and walking around with a bewildered look on their faces as they tried to take it all in, and there is so much to take it.

So the marathon experience begins with a trip to the expo to pick up your "goody bag" The expo is HUGE, because 50 000 people do this run. In your bag you have all sorts of treats like you number, a tshirt, a wrist band to say what areas you can get into or not (security is huge as you can imagine).

Once you get your bag you are ushered into the biggest sports store of all time. The line to wait to get your purchases is on 30minutes. Pretty amazing when you consider that they had about 50 check out chicks on. But the have very helpful people with signs at various points in the line telling you how long you will have to wait. The wait it also not too bad because you chat to fellow cult members about how excited you are, where you are from, how many marathons you have done, how long the flight is from Australia. That kind of thing.

The day of the marathon we were picked up from the hotel bright and early at 6am for the 1 hour bus trip out to Staten Island. This is about the time when you realise that if it take 60 minutes to drive here it is going to take a really long time to run back. You make nervous chatter, people go to the toilet on the bus (gross but everyone is hydrating) people eat (carb loading), and start getting that sick but excited feeling in your tummy, and start comparing injuries ( there were lots). 

Arriving at Staten Island you go through a security check, and then are ushered into a big holding lot and wait for your wave to be called. Bearing in mind at this stage it was only 7:30 and my wave started at 10:40, so there was some waiting to be done. Lucky there were bagels, coffees and power bars to be eaten, toilets to be gone to (lets just sat that after experiencing American port a loo's I will never complain again. Clearly they don't know that you can get ones that FLUSH- when you mix drop toilets with nervous runners bottom- GROSS), and lots of people to chat about how nervous/excited/scared/injured you are.

Finally my group was called, we were ushered into line , the American National Anthem was played, the gun went off and to the sounds of Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York" we were off. Needless the say the experience was incredible. You literally run from one end of New York to the other, through the five boroughs- Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. It was so interesting to see the different ethnic areas of the city as you run though the different boroughs. The one thing that all the areas had in common was the huge crowds cheering you on, calling your name, high 5-ing you, offering you tissues, bananas, water, chocolate and support. New Yorkers are just the best. Church groups were outside the churches singing, a school band was playing the Rocky Theme which they do for the WHOLE time the race is on ( considering the cut off time for the run is 9:30 hours that's not a bad effort). It felt like the whole city had come out to say hello. In fact 1 million had.

Finally I approached Central Park, and by that stage I was physically and emotionally done. Luckily I knew Laura ( my daughter) was waiting for me, and looking for here kept me busy. Central Park is such a beautiful place to finish because it is so pretty and peaceful compared with the busy city we had run through. Finally I saw Laura, burst into tears and somehow powered my poor stress fractured leg to run that final km to the finish line. I was crying so much I couldn't actually breathe. I'm still not sure how much of those tears where pain, relief or disappointment. Maybe they were just a good mix of all three.

Once through the finish line a volunteer places that medal around your neck, wraps you up in a "cape" which almost feels like the big hug that you need when you are mentally and physically exhausted. The only bad part of the event is that you do need to walk a very long way to get out of the Park, and as all the roads are a "frozen zone" you have to either walk or catch the subway which put an extra 4km on the 42Km already done.

To sum it all up the New York Marathon was everything and more I ever imagined. Would I do it again? At this stage it is sort of like having a baby- the experience is still very raw and I haven't forgotten the pain (and the moonboot is also a constant memory), but as time goes on I can honestly think I should have a rematch... one day.