NYC Marathon - The Prequel

On Friday I left work a little bit early and headed to the Javits Center to pick up my race packet. After I had what I needed, I walked around for a while but was worried about jinxing things if I bought stuff that had “2009 NYC Marathon” on it. So I bought a pair of arm warmers and pretty much just looked at everything else that was there. I was sure to dedicate this to Marge though.

Saturday morning I was up and packing my stuff. Over and over I checked my bags to make sure I had all the things I had though of over the training I had done: baby aspirin, bagels, bananas, tissues, etc. We packed up the car and headed to Queens.

We checked into our hotel in our old neighborhood just in time to quickly change, make sure my parents had arrived, and run out the door for the team pasta dinner at Carmine’s. We grabbed a cab, figuring it would be quicker, but then got stuck in traffic and ended up getting to the dinner about an hour late. We missed David Hyde Pierce but were in time to grab some salad and soon the pasta started appearing. I nervously chatted with teammates I was just meeting and ate some food. I bought a team shirt for my Mom and we headed out sort of early.

When we got back to the hotel, we went to see my parents, who had brought me some old clothes of my Dad’s to wear on Sunday morning while waiting for the race. They also brought me a few birthday presents and Mom baked a cherry pie and attempted Grandma’s molasses cookies. I was too nervous to eat them then but enjoyed the fact that my Mom brought them, since both remind me so much of Grandma. I handed over course maps and we talked a but about when and where they would meet up with Ren in the morning and where I would see them along the course and afterwards. Then I headed back to my room.

I was so nervous Saturday night that I mostly kept putting things into my bag and then taking them back out to make sure I had put them in there. Ren thought this was quite funny and kept reminding me that I had done all the work already and was going to make it to the finish. I went to call the front desk for a wakeup call and then realized there was no front desk button on my phone! So I set the hotel alarm clock and the alarm on my phone. Then I remembered that I had to turn the clocks back an hour. Then I checked and rechecked to make sure the alarms were both set. And finally I decided I just needed to go to sleep.

I actually slept fairly well. I usually wake up several times during the night when I stay in a strange place. But I rolled over and went back to sleep. No nightmares like some of my teammates had had along the way. Then at 4:20am my alarm went off. Marathon morning!

I packed up my stuff, kissed Ren goodbye, and headed for the subway. What an odd morning of marathon runners and late night Halloween revelers heading home from their parties. I hopped on the 7 train to Grand Central and when I switched trains to head to Union Square, I saw Coach Brian and teammates Lindsay! Naturally, Brian said he had had to run to catch the train! The man never stops running EVER!

We got to Union Square and loaded up the two team busses. They drove us to Staten Island and dropped us off. It was starting to drizzle a bit and it was cold. I was getting apprehensive. I didn’t want to run in the rain. Yuck. But it stopped just as quickly as we waited in a line (for what?) next to what seemed like a million French people and I row of port-a-potties!



Our team hung fairly close together as we were herded through the check point into the starting village. I stuck pretty close to my teammate Comanche and her friends. It was her first marathon as well and we spent a lot of the morning laughing at how crazy we were to be doing this and how we packed absolutely everything to bring with us!

Folks from the team starting headed out for the first wave. Then the second wave. I was in the third wave. A few of us went together to checks our bags with UPS and get in line for the bathroom. A handful of teammates huddled together nervously at the start and Coach Jeff took a few pictures of us.



Then, the third wave cannon went off and “New York, New York” started playing and it was time to run!