If you read my long-winded tome on my training, well, I apologize for that. I had the taper crazies! I also got carried away finding retro Barb Running Pictures! I did have a lot of fun thinking about my luck in the lottery that brought me back to running, and to the marathon. And on the day of the race, I really had a lot of fun, and then I was grumpy, and then I was very very happy.

Let’s start with some stats (spoiler alert!) from the results…

I developed an insanely complicated and tiered goal system. My goals were:

1. Have fun (check!)

2. Finish (check!)

3. Personal Best, beating my 2006 time of 3:51:44 (check!)

4. Boston Qualifier, which was probably going to be under 3:45 (check!)

5. Sub-3:30 (nope)

The tiered system, while weird, is great. Just because I didn’t meet my most aggressive goal doesn’t mean I was disappointed, and once the soreness left my legs after about a week, I was itching to sign up for another race to get that 3:30. After finishing, I was so happy that I was walking along in Central Park crying. Volunteers kept asking me if I was okay and I said yes I’m fine, I’m just happy! Was I partly happy just because I wasn’t running anymore? Absolutely. But I also smashed most of my goals, and at age 45, I notched a 15 minute PR. What a great day.

If you’re curious about the actual experience of running the NYC Marathon, I’ve separated it below into pre-race, the actual race, and the post-race experience. I’ve tried to keep it brief wherever possible. But I think it’s really helpful to know what to expect if you’re thinking about running. It’s also unlike any marathon I’ve run, and while I haven’t run that many, I had previously run a small local marathon in Boulder, most of the Chicago Marathon (another world major), and the marathon leg of an Ironman Triathlon (absolutely not recommended, no way, no how).

Pre-Race

The logistics alone make NYC a special, if annoying, race to run. My group started at 9:10 am, and living in Brooklyn , had I elected NYRR organized transportation, I would have been on a bus from midtown Manhattan at 5:30 am. Because I am a member of the Prospect Park Track Club, I was able to get a spot on the PPTC bus from about a mile from my apartment, straight to Staten Island.

We arrived in the Start Village around 5:45 am. Great - over 3 hours to hang out, use porte-potties, snack, and get nervous. Luckily I arrived with PPTC friends and we made the time go by pretty quickly with a few photos, chatting, and wandering around.

We got lined up a few minutes before 9:00 and waited some more for the start. It is very easy to get caught up in the excitement, the National Anthem, the jets flying overhead. It’s a real vibe. But if you’re running, you also have to be smart. The first mile is an uphill over the Verrazano Narrows bridge. You’re feeling peppy, full of caffeine and adrenaline. It would be easy to fly off the line and end your hopes of a good finish within the first mile. It’s good to remind yourself how far you have to go. 26.2 miles.

The Race

The race itself is almost indescribable. Even though I had run most of the Chicago Marathon, the crowds in New York are incomparable. Brooklyn is wall to wall cheering pretty much from the time you step off the first bridge of the race. I had an idea as to where I would see family and friends through the borough, which gave me something to look forward to. I was clicking off miles in the 7:33 - 7:45 range and it felt easy (oops). I did a good job with nutrition, with a gel about every 3.5 miles, although I may have overdone it with the caffeinated gels given how loopy I was by mile 20. Live and learn!

We hit the halfway point on the Pulaski Bridge into Queens, and reality began to sink in. It’s pretty easy to feel great for 13 miles, but another 13, including most of the climbing and descending is not that easy. The sun was feeling warm by then too. I kept a positive mental attitude and trucked up the Queensboro Bridge, passing people who were already walking. Considering my early start, I was surprised by this! However, the downhill off the Queensboro onto First Avenue in Manhattan was another story. My quads went from feeling fine to being completely trashed. Yikes. By mile 18, where I saw my husband for the second time and my friend Corey picked me up for 4 miles together, I was in a dark place. I told Rod my knee hurt and I was going to slow down. I don’t think he heard me. Now we enter the hardest 4 miles of the race, otherwise known as the Tunnel of Whining.

Poor Corey was so chipper and so incredibly helpful, and I just kept whining no matter what he said. My knee did hurt at this point and every mile or two I was stopping to stretch it out. Corey helped me stretch the time between when I was stopping which I am convinced is the only reason I finished in under 3:40. He left at 107th and I was alone trudging up Fifth Avenue. I saw Rod again and said I was slowing down. But he didn’t care, he was so proud! I turned into Central Park and stopped again to stretch around the Met. As it turns out, there was a medical tent there and they plied me with water, salt (gross), and Bio-Freeze. This helped a lot. I kept going. All of a sudden I was running north to the finish line, which is rudely uphill. I felt like I was sprinting (I think I was running 7:30 pace). And then I was done.

Post-Race

I cannot describe how happy I was when I finished. I had crushed almost all of my goals. I saw so many friends and my awesome husband. I was so close to the post-race meetup spot where I could change clothes, which I was really looking forward to. So I cried, and cried, pretty much until I found my husband (this takes a long time, they make you walk for ages after the finish, it’s annoying). PPTC has a meetup space in a school on the Upper West side, which is totally incredible. You walk into this school and people from your club are just cheering and congratulating you, it feels amazing. They do their own bag drop too, so I was able to grab my backpack and change. I drank an entire Coke.

Running New York was such a great experience. I’m so glad I bucked up and did my long runs, which I was not that interested in doing in August. I’m glad I learned how to fuel my training and my race, and my nutrition was on point. I’m really proud of how I raced, and now that I’ve already signed up for my next marathon, and qualified for Boston in 2025, I am very excited to see how much faster I can go. If you have a chance to run, I hope you’ll take it.