The Trip to the Start This year I used the Staten Island Ferry to get to the start. Every other year, I stayed the night before with my sister on Staten Island and she drove me to the start in the morning. But this year, I couldn't stay with her so I stayed with my mother in Brooklyn. Sunday morning, I took the subway to South Ferry, took the ferry to Staten Island then took a city bus to Fort Wadsworth. That worked well. There were a lot of runners going this way. The only problem is that the city bus doesn't quite get to the fort so you have a long walk once you're off the bus. But I think this is better than using the shuttle buses from Manhattan because to use those buses, you have to be there ridiculously early. By using the ferry, I was able to wake up an hour and a half later.
Fort Wadsworth--Ridiculously Crowded The fort this year was absolutely packed. It seemed the fort commander decided to prohibit us from walking on the grass. Well that cut out about half of the walking area. It was like the proverbial sardine can wherever you turned. They were using a new system for baggage buses this year and that added to the confusion. Instead of the buses stretching out along a long curb, they were gathered in a parking lot. All in all, the starting area was a disaster. Finally, people just pushed down the barriers and walked on the grass because it was getting close to the starting time and they weren't able to get to the baggage buses. It's amazing to me that after over 25 years, they can't do everything right.
The Start This was the first year I started in the blue area. This is the area the best runners start in. I don't think there's any significance to me being in there; just luck I believe. Last year they started a new system where you lined up in the holding area based on your expected finishing time. That might have worked well except that once they started letting us onto the bridge for the start, all hell broke loose and most people started running in order to get a good position. I'm not sure what was going on. We would run a short distance then stop then run again. Next thing I know, we're crossing the start line. I guess the race started...3 minutes ago!
My Pace I ran most of the race at a good clip. I was using the mile at a time philosophy. I had 2 power gels with me and they were my interim goals; I get one at mile 9 and one at mile 18. At mile 18, my time was about 2:26. 8 miles to go. I figured even if I went at a 9 min pace, I would easily break last year's time and have a new personal best. Well maybe it was because I started thinking of the finish instead of the next mile or maybe I just ran out of gas but for the rest of the race, I was dragging. My right achilles tendon also started to bother me at mile 20 so that slowed me down. I averaged a 10 min mile for the rest and finished at 3:46; my second best time. I was kind of bummed out that I let my pace fall so much.
The Rain It poured terribly at this marathon. Fortunately it was not cold (it was in the 50s). But at about 2.5 hours it came down in buckets with thunder and lightning. I wore the hat they give you instead of a sweatband because I figured it would be better in the rain (because of the bill). Actually, it wasn't as bad as I had expected to run in a downpour. My shoes and socks were soaked and they were starting to feel like weights on my feet. But I just barreled along; through the puddles, whatever. The rain seemed to dampen the crowd's enthusiasm though. I was particularly disappointed with the lack of noise at the end of the Queensborough Bridge.
The Hat Incident I mentioned that I used the Marathon hat. In Brooklyn, this punk tried to steal my hat. I was running along, feeling good, giving high 5's, when these guys kept pointing at my hat. Then one of them takes it off my hat and puts it on his. So I stopped, went back and snatched it back.
After the Finish When it was done, that's when my body realized it was very wet and cold. I started shivering a lot. The space blanket was not doing the trick. Luckily I had a complete change of clothes in my bag and, as soon as I got the bag, I pulled to the side and changed. I used a towel to try to keep some modesty. Then I got to the reunion area.
The Family Reunion Area In the reunion area, I went to the letter J area to try to find my friends Maddy Li, Molly Hoever and Cathy Bernier. They arrived much later; happy and very tired.
Dinner at the Carnegie Deli With a Group From a Chicago So now it was after 4 and I took a long walk intending to get to the subway and go back to Brooklyn. But instead I decided to go to the Carnegie Deli for dinner. At the Carnegie, they sat me down and then a few minutes later, they sat a group of 3 with me. It turns out one of them had run the race too. His name is Steve Dobrofsky from Chicago. He did it in 3:50. So we talked a lot about the race and it was fun. The other 2 people were a married couple; his friends from Chicago. So Steve has run 10 marathons since 93, all different. He said NY is very hard.
The Photo Here is my finish line photo from this marathon. I believe I was yelling something like "woo hoo".