I ran the 2010 NYC Marathon last month and put together a short video of my experience of the few days leading up to the race and race day. Overall, it was a fun race and a great experience! But, it’s actually pretty hard. The course isn’t super hard, but the 5 bridges we crossed were tough. What’s hard is that when you get to NYC the day(s) before, you spend almost all of your time walking around! You can’t get around in NYC without walking…even if you take taxis or the subway. So, by Marathon day your feet are tired!
The day of the race is super long and starts out with a journey to the very south tip of Manhattan to get to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Then, you have to wait with all of the other runners to catch the ferry. Once you make it across to the island, you have to take a 10min bus ride to the runners “village” where you do more walking to get to your assigned village and corral. Then, after a long morning you finally start around 10am depending on your wave. The course was awesome and great crowds, but the last 6 miles going through Central Park are hell. You keep thinking you are almost done and then the course winds around and you have 2 more miles!
Once you finally cross the finish, you have a slow 30min walk with the other 45,000 runners to get out of central park. During that time you are freezing (it was in the 40’s) and wet. When I broke away from the park, all I wanted to do was get in a cab and go back to the hotel where I could enjoy my champagne (thanks Mom and Dad). BUT…all the cabs were taken! So, I had to take the bus, which ended up being pretty easy. An amazing thing happened to me when I was walking around looking for a cab/bus. I was so cold that I was shaking really bad and this nice woman actually offered me her coat! I turned it down, but just couldn’t believe that she was willing to give a stranger the coat off her back. New Yorkers are the best!!
For the recipe in the video click HERE.
