And We Are Off!

The first mile or so on the bridge gave me something to think about rather than the 26.2 miles ahead. There was 'stuff' to avoid on the bridge that could have caused any of us to go down. There were sweatshirts, hats, gloves, plastic and at one point, a pair of sweatpants!

It was the three of us (me, Danielle and Addie) for at least the first half of the bridge. Then at some point, I turned to find Addie and she was not there. It was me and Danielle.

Once there was no more 'crap' to avoid, Danielle pointed out the beautiful skyline. I have never been so moved by seeing that. I was running in the freakin' NYC Marathon. Holy Crappola, Batman.

Getting off the bridge and into Brooklyn was uplifting. I could hear the bands and hear the crowds and that is where I finally understood what Pat meant. When I was so worried about my body and not being able to run, she promised me that the crowd would get me through. I got it as I started hearing "Lynnie! You are doing great."

The drunks in Brooklyn made me smile and smile. They were not shy about what was in their glasses and even offered some to us runners. The smells were awesome. At one point Danielle commented on it and added that it was too early to think about food.

The first thing Danielle taught me was how to manage the water stations. She just said "We need to move to the middle". I had read all of the coaching about not stopping at the first table, as they go one for a bit and don't cause a bottleneck and all. I had trained with my FuelBelt, so I had no plan to stop and get fluid until my 32 ounces was gone.

I was not prepared for:

How narrow the road became. The tables on both sides and the volunteers handing out cups made the width in which we could run more like half the width it was before the fluid station.

The cups on the ground. They are slippery and caused one foot to slip more often than I care to remember.

The criss crossing that runners did. I didn't understand that, as it seemed that both sides had water and Gatorade, so it seemed that people could stay on one side, but they didn't.

The stickiness - I mean really sticky, like running through tar that was not yet dry. I could feel that stickiness being flicked onto my ankle and calves. It grossed me out a bit.

I developed a strategy for fluid stations - Move to the middle, watch the ground and keep moving.

That strategy gave me confidence and it also prevented me from noticing the mile markers. The majority of the markers seemed to be at the fluid stations.

At some point, Danielle asked me if I had a time goal for my marathon. The first goal I had was to finish. I told her that if I could run a perfect race, and my injuries cooperated, I wanted to finish under 5 hours. She told me that was her goal as well.

In the corral, one of our team members (I think it was Jeff, but I am not sure) said something like this:

Okay, let's think of this as a 20 mile long run, with 6 miles tacked onto the end.

I said "This is an 8 mile run for me and then a 1 mile run to see someone I know."

More about that in my next post.