ING NYC Marathon 2011

Yesterday was the ING NYC Marathon for 2011, overall the experience was fun and a great challenge. The day started VERY early for me, as I am staying with a friend in South Jersey.  I got up just before 2AM, and that is after daylight savings time, made something really quickly, mixed up my VitaCoco water and Vega Sports Performance Optimizer drink, to get hydrated.  I drove up to Journal Square to catch the PATH train into the city, which if and when I do NYC again I'll go out of Hoboken instead.  I only say this because it takes a long time from Penn Station to get to Journal Square via Hoboken on the weekends, and not good if you have to pee.  In fact when I got to Journal Square there was no open bathroom, which I don't comprehend, the PATH employee said I could go to McD's and pee, well I went out back and peed on building, lol.  4:15 I am on the PATH train to Christopher St, and see some other folks headed to the marathon as well.  After leaving PATH there was a few blocks walk up to the 1 train on Christopher St, which took us to the Staten Island Ferry.  I waited for a little bit and here came the ferry, eventhough I could have caught the 6:15 one, a volunteer said it's ok to take the earlier one, they didn't even verify your transportation sticker, though I changed it at the Expo from the Jersey bus to the SIF.  It was amazing going thru the harbor and seeing the Statue Of Liberty so close and the Ferry driver slowed down a little for us even.  Getting off the Ferry the first thing I noticed was the nice stench of Staten Island, P U !!! Then caught a shuttle bus to the start area. 

By the time I got to the start area the sun was coming up, which was good, and it was about 6:30 at this point, which meant over 3 hours to go until the start of the race.  I tried to stay in sunny areas, to stay as warm as possible, even with sweatpants and some long sleeved shirts on, for throw away later.  That was all over my singlet, arm warmers, and shorts, of course I had my Zensah compression sleeves on, and a little beenie hat to keep my head warm. I had a small coffee, thanks to Dunkin Donuts, and continued drinking water.  A shame there was no fresh fruit available to eat though.  I did start taking some Chocolate #9 packs every so often, I think I downed 4 or 5 before the start, to give me a little reserve for the race, I also had 5 in my pack, to take them along the race route.  The corrals for wave 1 opened up at 8:20 and I went into the corral, and started stretching and warming up some.  Though not always easy, with as croweded as it was, we weren't packed in there, but still not a lot of space honestly.  About 9 we started moving towards the Verazano-Narrows Bridge, by this point I only had one long sleeve shirt still on and had tossed the sweats and the other long sleeve I had.  More standing around for a bit, as the elite women started at 9:10 roughly.  Finally I lost the last of my throw away clothing about 9:25.  Here I am ready to get this thing on:

We move forward more about 9:30 or so, Bloomberg makes a very short speach literally 15 seconds, national anthem, and the introduction of the elite men.  It is 9:45 before we actually start, technically 5 minutes late, but no big deal.  I took it easy going up the Verazanos still did 7:55 for it, but I wasn't going to kill myself on that first mile pretty much straight up.  Thru the 5K point I was keeping a 7:32 pace, which was in the range I wanted to be in, I wanted to stay between 7:30-8:00 minute miles if possible for the entire race.  I was slowing down gradually through the first half of the race, and then this upper respiratory infection and bronchitis I've been battling kicked in good.  I was not going to quit though, I made it through the first half in 1:48:20, not bad really, since I was no where near 100%, I'd say 60% at best if that even.  I got to the Queensboro Bridge and was either walking most of the way up or jogging very slowly, again another big incline and I didn't have to lung power to kill myself here.  Also at this point the arm warmers and beenie were back on to keep myself warm, good thing I hadn't tossed them, as there was a lot of shaded areas and breeze the rest of the way.  The rest of the race included quite a bit of walking very fast and slow run, also walking thru water stations and trying to stay hydrated. I was able to run a slow pace most of the Bronx, including getting off a few Baba Booeys with some local firemen.  Over the Madison Ave Bridge, last bridge, thank god, and back into Manhattan/Harlem.  Still a lot of walking going on with some slow running, no way in hell I was quiting.  Into Central Park, ugh uphills, though the downhills were nice.  I managed to have a steady pace for most of mile 26 with little walking, and ran the last .2 miles, thru the finish.  4:25:07 later I was done, also according to my Garmin it was actually 26.49 miles:

If you want to see all my splits you can go here: Track Runners and enter bib number 4423.

Here is the front and back of the finishers medal as well:

No I didn't get it engraved no biggie, I finished that is what matters.

At the end we are hurried thru to get  medals, and goodie bags, then walk quite a way it seems to get our gear bags.  Luckily I was able to exit Central Park on 79th and Columbus Ave.  Which I knew was close to Cafe Blossom. I needed some good food to refuel right away.  After eating I got the subway back to Penn Station, which was crazy, not enough C trains running on Sunday.  Then the PATH back to Journal Square. 

That evening was a nice ice bath, ok not so nice it's not very comfortable, but keeps the swelling and inflamation of muscles down.  Though today there is still much pain and suffering going on. 

Thanks to everyone who donated to the North Shore Animal League America it is really appreciated. 

Something I learned from doing this marathon, is to not discard items like arm warmers or hats along the way, though I had read the same thing in Meb Keflezighi's book as well, he made that mistake one year and could have really used his hat later in the race.  I hope to do NYC again, this time without a severe cold, like this year. I know I would have done much better if I wasn't battling this, but again I finished my first ever marathon, so when is the next one :p