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wandering…

I get my name in the paper, but this time it is different…

3:43:04-not a personal best, but best personally.

Last year was 3:38:33. But to describe the difference between the two years as simply 4 minutes and 31 seconds is way off.

There is a big difference between doing the NYC Marathon the first time and a second time. My whole approach was different. I really wanted to stick to my plan, but I really wanted to enjoy it too, and I was prepared to sacrifice the one for the other.

Mile by Mile

It starts at 4:00 am. Dark, cold. Getting up and getting coffee and a bagel going, putting on the kit. In a car by 5 to catch a charter bus from jackrabbit at 5:30. Four tour buses full head south on the BQE in the darkness towards the Verrazano Bridge. For some on the bus it is their first, and the advice is always the same, “save for later”.

Early morning at Ft. Wadsworth, Staten Island is cold, windy, dark. The tour buses unload at the toll plaza on the SI end of the bridge, and we walk in early twilight towards the encampment. I go to my section, green, and we are amongst the first to arrive, so everyone is moving slowly and without much urgency. That will come later. There are sleeping bags, cardboard boxes, blankets, no Snuggles tho- but anything to shelter from the cold. I have brought a plastic drop cloth and wrap myself up like a burrito in it. Next time, I’m going for the Snuggle. We have over two hours to wait till 9:40 start…

A man seated next to me offers a patch of grass to sit on, warmer than concrete, and it is his first NYCM, and he is curious, so I share my experiences, but I am sure none of it really matters, he will find out, just as I did, what happens. The sun finally comes up at 7, and takes the chill off, just a little. But we are all cold.

We move into the corrals and it seems better organized this year, or maybe I paid better attention this year, but I am there with time to spare. The only trouble is there is no way to warm up, it will be cold muscles on the bridge. So I plan on going out very slow just to warm up. A canon boom and we are off! Immediately several people trip and fall over plastic bags other have shed-not the way you want to start a race, note to self-look down! I am on the lower level this year, and the wind is strong- coming from the side, but the air is so clear, the city is etched in relief in the distance. I run the whole first mile up the Verrazano just looking sideways at this sight, and most of the way down to Brooklyn. For some reason it seems far away and close all at the same time.

This is part of the difference between the first year and the second- there are now acts in this play, and this is the beginning of the first act, the first 8 miles in Brooklyn. I can see the Williamsburg Savings Bank, mile 8, and so I know exactly how far that is, so even tho all of that is very distant, it is a near goal in this context, a warm-up 8 miles, which is somehow comforting.

We come off the bridge and into Bay Ridge, and the 3:30 pace group goes by me, and for a moment I think, should I hang on to them? That is the goal time, but the plan was to run a negative split and go slow the first half and faster the second. It is a conservative plan which leaves you something in the tank if things are not so good, so I leave them to their 8:01 splits and I do my 8:10 splits.

We chug along for the early Brooklyn miles- I get a shout out from Cristina and Emmet at mile 6!- it feels really good when you see someone you know, and also, it is really really hard to find people, so when you succeed it is great. I run the plan all the way to mile 8, the end of the “first act”, and we turn onto Lafayette, a small hill up and a bottleneck of runners. A slow split, but nothing troubling, a downhill comes next and it is all made up. I am running a minute behind schedule, which I feel great about, very very consistent. It is consistent all the way to the half point on the Pulaski Bridge.

So this is the point where if I am going to negative split I have to go from 8:10′s to 7:50′s- which poses a problem because now I am on the first major hill since the start and I need to shave a good 20 seconds off my pace- had I looked at it like this I probably would have not planned it this way. So I drop a half minute more without even going that much slower. I can react to this badly or not, and this time around, knowing what I know I decide it really doesn’t matter, that I am not going to push here, this is only the second act of this play, I still am worried that I am going to have some pain later and really don’t want to run the last 10 miles wincing with every step, so I let it go. But the pace does not go up on the downhill either, I am still doing 8:10′s or so, and then there is the Queensboro Bridge to content with. I had already made my bargain with this last year, it had really done me in, so I lose another minute in those two miles up and over, and coming on to First Ave, I am 3 minutes behind, but actually feeling really really good to be in Manhattan. End of second act.

The third act is 3.5 miles up First Avenue to 110th Street-then another 3 through the Bronx back into Manhattan, and my goal was to get through this feeling fresh because I knew there is that hill on Fifth Avenue at mile 22.5 that required serious work. In planning for this I decided to plant the “ULTRA” there, positioned at mile 22.5 with the secret ingredient that I knew would guarantee me home free…(The ULTRA was Winston Churchill’s code name during WWII for ultra top secret military intelligence-the breaking of the German secret coded communications. It was what he knew would be the “difference” between victory and defeat.) What I remember of this section is coming back into Manhattan and really knowing that I had it, I was in such better shape this year than last, tired, but still moving easily, just not as fast. I could look around and take it all in, it was not a grim block by block campaign. I remember seeing the stretch of Fifth Avenue  ahead when we came around the turn at Marcus Garvey, and the sun was almost directly overhead but low as it is in late fall, all the runners were back lit and outlined against the trees overhead, it was very beautiful, and I was chugging steadily towards the ULTRA!

I find the ULTRA at 110th Street just as we had planned, this is the climax of the third act, and we are shocked to see each other, it is 15 seconds of omigod keep going and I have no idea what I said, and deciding, do I want water, gatorade, salty chips, M&M’s, almonds, whatever the food craving was, we had it covered!- this was to be my motivator, and cramp protector, hence the salty snacks, and maybe running up Fifth Avenue with a bag of Lay’s would have been funny, but I felt ok, so I took some water, so-called “Smart Water” only to check later and see–ZERO SODIUM! Too funny. But the ULTRA had worked, I was ready to finish this race, so I continue up Fifth Avenue at a steady pace, three quarters of a mile uphill, densely packed on both sides with spectators until the Park entrance at 90th Street. Last year all of this was a blur, but this year I am tired but moving, although I do get a little cramp during the park miles, which I solve by not panicking and breathing and speeding up a little and turning up the music on the ipod- anything to just get my mind off my left hamstring. End of fourth act.

Finally the fifth act, the denoument, where it is all resolved!–the last mile along Central Park South towards Columbus Circle, where last year I was hating all those happy folks who were having a banner day while I was suffering. This year I am very excited, happy, actually going slower just to savour it, I had missed the 3:330 finish long ago, and the previous best did not really matter. And that is how it ended, very glad not to be running anymore as I crossed the finish line, but not spent either. Simply very satisfied.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that this year I could share this experience with someone close, someone special, in addition to friends and family. You train alone, perhaps you run alone, but you don’t go through life alone, at least you needn’t. So thanks to everyone and special thanks to the ULTRA for making this year the personal best.