It probably makes sense to share a little background on the training leading up the race. They say you should be running a few times a week for about a year before training for a marathon. According to my 2008 training log I ran 781 miles and my 2009 log was about on that pace with 335 miles through June – not bad considering the challenge of running through winter in NH. Over the course of the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon I logged additional 479 miles – about 65 hours of pounding the pavement. My training plan was an intermediate plan from Burt Yasso CRO (Chief Running Officer) of Runner’s World magazine. The plan consisted of 5 runs a week ranging from easy runs, long runs, intervals, hills, and marathon pace runs. The plan called out for 562 miles of running; so I was pretty happy hitting most of the plan given work and life schedules.

Sara and I headed down to New York on Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Hilton in Manhattan on 6th Ave, which was one of the two main marathon headquarter hotels. Arriving on Friday was great because it allowed me to head over to the Expo for race number pick-up and avoid the Saturday crowd. The number pickup process was incredibly quick, the organizers did a great job of keeping things streamlined. Back at the hotel I met Abdi Abdiraham, one of the top US runners and a super nice guy. He told me he was shooting to break 2:10:00. Abdi would go on to run a 2:14:00 for 9th place, sub 2:10:00 would have put him on the podium and in contention – the winner ran 2:09:15. The rest of Friday night was pretty uneventful, dinner – blah, walked around a bit, hit the hay.

Earlier in the week I saw a twitter/tweet from Lance Armstrong stating that he was planning on going for a jog in Central Park on Saturday AM and invited folks to join him. There was no chance of me passing up that opportunity. About 100-200 people showed up at NikeTown on 5th Ave Saturday morning. We were all hanging around when all of a sudden Lance appeared, someone whistled, and we were running. This was probably the most dangerous run of my life, everyone was trying to get up front to run next to Lance. I was able to run side by side with him for 1-2 minutes at a couple points during the run. Got to talk with him a bit and thank him. Joan Benoit Samuelson also ran with the group. She was super nice, and at the age of 52 she would go on to run a 2:49:09 to finish 17th overall for the women. The run lasted about 4-5 miles through Central Park, Lance said a few words, and jumped in a Taxi before being swarmed. Lance wasn’t running the marathon on Sunday, but was in town for Livestrong promotions.

Lance giving some advice which I promptly ignored....

The rest of Saturday was spent eating great food and walking around the city. We walked to a point where my legs were sore and my knees ached a bit. Probably not the smartest thing to do a pre-marathon, but we were in New York and weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to take in the city. We met some great friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Supper. Dinner was great; the company was even better. My abs got a good workout from belly laughing. After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and I was asleep by 10.

Dinner with the Fusco's at Supper

Sunday started with a 4:30 AM wakeup call. I was very well rested thanks to the clock change and the early night. Although I wasn’t racing until 9:40 AM, I was on a 5:00 bus to the starting line. You can imagine the logistics of getting 42K+ people over to the start of the race. The temp outside the hotel was pretty warm, so I opted to leave some of my warmer clothes behind and just wore a through away long sleeve T-shirt over the shirt I was racing in. I realized this was a bad move when arrived at the start where it was about 10 degrees cooler and windy. The smarter folks had sweats, blankets, etc. It was amazing arriving in Staten Island at 5:40 AM and being cheered by about 30 screaming volunteers. The starting area was huge and setup with Dunkin Donuts coffee, bagels, water, and hundreds of porta potties. I spent the next 3 hours doing my best to stay warm. I drank a little coffee, ate a bagel, drank my bottle of Hammer Perpetuem (electrolyte drink with about 400 calories), drank some water, visited the porta potty a few times, met some really cool people, etc.

At 9 AM I headed over to the starting corral. I was in the 1st wave going off with the Pro Men. The Pro’s were actually on the upper deck of the bridge and I was on the deck below them – with about 10K of my closest friends. I was given some good advice as we made our way on to the bridge – stay to the middle. It turns out that some people pee off of the top bridge, so you can get a not so nice surprise if you are on the outside of the lower bridge. Although I didn’t see anyone get sprinkled on, I was happy to have been given the advice. After a few minutes of waiting on the bridge, we were off.

My plan was to stick with the 3:30 Timex pace group – 8 minute miles – for the first 10 miles and then pick it up a bit if I felt good. From my training, I knew that when I went out a little slower on my long runs I could pick it up and still feel good around 19/20 miles. I also knew from experience that going out at 7:50 and 7:40 led to bad things at mile 19/20. All I had to do was stick with the Timex guy and I would keep myself out of trouble.

The first mile was slow uphill and extremely crowed and the second mile was downhill and fast as the Timex guy tried to get us back on pace

Mile 1 - 9:90
Mile 2 - 7:18
Mile 3 - 8:03

At this point, I got sick of running with the pace group – way too crowded – so I picked it up a bit. As I replay this moment in my mind, I keep yelling at myself “Noooooooooooooooooo”, but the outcome is always the same….

Mile 4 - 7:35
Mile 5 – 7:34
Mile 6 - 7:38
Mike 7 -7:38

I knew I was running too fast, but I just hoped that the energy from the enormous crowds would allow me to keep this pace up.

Mile 8 - 7:42
Mile 9 - 7:54
Mile 10 - 7:37
Mile 11 - 7:55
Mile 12 - 7:48
Mike 13 - 7:52

13.1 - 1:42:43. This was faster than my previous standalone half marathon PR by 2 seconds.

Mile 14 - 7:54
Mile 15 - 8:09
Mile 16 – 7:57
Mile 17 – 7:46
Mile 18 – 7:46

At this point I was almost 3 minutes under my goal pace of 3:30 and on track to get close to 3:25. Unfortunately, this is also the point when the wheels started to come off the bus

Mile 19 – 8:07
Mile 20 – 8:28

Fatigue really set in at this point as I smashed right into the wall. How did it feel? It is hard to describe. My heart and lungs felt great, but my legs were heavy, slow, and achy. I much as I willed them to, they just wouldn’t turn over quickly.

Mile 21 – 8:35
Mile 22 – 8:47
Mile 23 - 9:07

At this point, my legs started to cramp up. The pain and heaviness didn’t go away either. On top of the pain I had been dealing with for the past 3 miles, I would get a sharp cramp in each calve as I pushed off. My quads were kind enough to only cramp up every few strides. I’m still not sure why I cramped up. I hydrated well leading up to the race, had water and an electrolyte drink pre-race, alternated between Gatorade and water at every aid station, took Hammer gel every 45 minutes, and the temp was in the 50’s. The cramps made the next three miles about the most painful of my life, but I made myself keep going.

Mile 24 – 9:43
Mike 25 – 9:15

The crowds in Central Park were awesome, unfortunately I was in too much pain to really enjoy them.

Mile 26 – 8:56
Last .2 – 1:52

Just like that it was over. My final time was 3:34:14 – 8 minute and 11 seconds per mile. Just 4 minutes and 15 seconds shy of my goal. That put me at:
• 6190 out of 43,374
• 5323rd overall male finisher
• 878 out of 3924 in the male 30-34 age group
• PR by over 32 minutes

Over the last 5/6 miles it felt like thousands of people passed me, and it turns out that they did. If I kept up my pace and ran a 3:25 I would have finished around 4000th place, so about 2K people passed me in the last miles. Looking back, I obviously went out too fast and should have stuck with my original plan. Even if it didn’t change my finish time by much, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the last miles much more if I had started out more conservatively.

New York is a must do race for marathoners; I highly recommend it and would do it again. The course was much tougher than I expected, with long climbs and long descents that trash your quads. The crowds are unbelievable ;their energy and the excitement the create is amazing. My recommendation to anyone running New York would be the following…. Slow down, don’t try to PR. Enjoy the sights and the crowds. High five people in the Bronx, Queens. Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Raise your hands in the air as you run that final mile through central park. If I ever run New York again, my goal will be 4 hours, giving me enough time to really enjoy the experience.

December 13th in Dallas is another story though. There my goal will be to break 3:30. 6 more weeks to prepare….