NYC Marathon Weekend

Today was the ING NYC Marathon. The marathon goes right by my apartment (up 1st Ave) and I watched it for a bit last year. This year, though, I was a lot more into the marathon for 2 reasons: 1) my friend Joanna from church was running and 2) I have been running a lot more this past year so that made it more fun to watch.

Yesterday, New York Road Runners held a 5k "Dash to the Finish Line." It started on 1st Ave. at the UN, headed west on 42nd Street to Ave of the Americas, and then to Central Park West and into the park across the marathon finish line. I decided to sign up and run that.

The run started at 8:30am and it was 37 degrees out when I left my apartment. I didn't take a coat or anything with me because I would have had nowhere to leave it while I was running. It was cold getting down there and waiting.

This was a group from Japan. I am sure they were running the marathon and decided to do the dash for fun.

The start - the narrow building on the left is the United Nations.

Running west on 42nd Street - this is almost to Grand Central Station.

Running to the finish line in Central Park. It is blurry because I didn't want to stop running to get a good, clear picture.

Finished! My clock time was 27:55, which is 9:01/mile.

Today after church, Mike, Adam, Lauren and I headed to about 67th Street and 1st Ave to wait for Joanna. You could follow runners on a website so you knew exactly what mile they were at and therefore when to expect them. She is in the purple tank right about in the middle of the picture.

After we saw her on 1st, we walked to Central Park because we had tickets for the grand stand. We got there, but could barely see anything from the bleachers, so we headed back to mile 25 to wait for her there.

She was on the opposite side, but we were screaming her name so she saw us.

We then ran to mile 26 so we could see her close to the finish line. This was the best picture I got from that angle.

Mike took a bunch of pictures at the end so will wait for those to post. It was a fun day and definitely motivating (especially since tomorrow is my official start day for training for the P.F. Chang's Rock N Roll half-marathon in January). I also wouldn't mind running the NYC marathon someday!

Congrats Joanna!!!