It's already been a week since I ran the New York marathon (yes I am now an official marathoner - hooray!) but I think that it will stand out as one of the best days ever for a long long time to come. M and I landed at JFK on the Friday before and from the get go the buzz surrounding the marathon was palpable. We checked in to our hotel, dumped our bags and headed straight to the Expo. Our excitement built as a steady stream of runners with their marathon bags kept passing us on our way. Registration was much easier than I had anticipated and once we had collected our race numbers and timing tags we were free to browse the array of stalls with ING branded running gear and accessories galore. Having sung the praises of The Stick throughout the training, M was excited to find a stand dedicated to the device and bought a slightly shorter and stiffer version of the one I have had on loan. The best thing about the Expo was the massive map which showed the route and how the course takes in the five main boroughs of New York City. Beginning on Staten Island, the race starts out with a 1.5 miles bridge crossing (the first of four) before taking in Brooklyn, then Queens, heading on to Manhattan at about mile 16 before nipping over to The Bronx and then using the fourth bridge to re-enter Manhattan in order to finish up in Central Park.
The following day we decided to loosen our legs with a 3 miler round Central Park, taking in the marathon finish line and trialing my ITB strap for the first time. It was raining and everywhere there were joggers of all nationalities taking their last run ahead of the big one. Despite being slow and slightly achy (these were my first post Cabbage Patch injury miles) it was a great feeling to be running again and the Central Park backdrop was very cool. What was not so cool was the stiff knee that developed less than an hour after the run. I was nervous about my ability to go the distance the following day without significant pain but luckily too excited to let it worry me much. I already knew that it was going to be an awesome day regardless of whether I had to run, walk or crawl round the course.
On Saturday evening we layered up against the rain and took the metro down to Brooklyn to meet up with some of M's family for a really decent pasta dinner and slice of Haloween inspired pumpkin pie. We found a lovely french bakery and bought some croissants for breakfast plus we stocked up on water and bananas to see us through to the start line. Once back at the hotel we spent the time before bed laying out all our gear and attaching our names and numbers to the front of our tops. Knowing I was staring pain in the face I calculated the maximum Ibruprofen it would be safe to consumer within a 24 hour period and then stuffed my running pouch full of the anti inflammatories, vaseline, gels and dextro energy tablets. Having been warned of the long wait at the start line in the cold early hours, and looking out of the window at the pouring rain, we lined up our additional clothing (which would need to be discarded on the roadside) and packed our last minute poncho purchases into the regulation see-through marathon bag.
With the clocks going back an hour that night (daylight saving) and feeling pretty content I settled down for a solid 7 hours of kip ahead of the 6.45 bus pickup from outside the hotel lobby.
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