Long time, no blog ;) I have been SO busy at work since I got back and getting things back to normal since we left for NYC that I haven't had time to post. So, on to the race report! After eating a great meal with friends of pizza at John's pizzeria off Times Square the night before the marathon, we were off to bed. (But not before I had a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery---yum :) I didn't sleep very well, but then again I never do before race day. I always make sure to get a good night's sleep 2 nights out instead and I am alway great on race day. 4 am came bright and early---got all my racing things together (much more easy than a triathlon :) and met Rick, a friend from Meridian, in the lobby of our hotel. We had to walk about 9 blocks to the buses for the marathon, which would drop us off at Staten Island to wait for the race to begin. And wait we did...........from 6am until 10 am !! Luckily, we got a spot in a big tent (never mind being packed like sardines---Hey, I was warm and not complaining ;) I tried to chill out and rest, but that's hard to do when you have to sit indian-style for almost 4 hours ;) There was a light drizzle outside and it was chilly, but it did end up clearing before the start of the race. I waited about 2 hours before the race to eat my peanut butter and bagel. Ok, so I had made multiple visits to the Port-a-pot during those 4 hours, due to hydrating so much that morning. I had one hour before my wave began, so I decided to make one final trip. Big mistake!!! Because I was in the first wave, we were to begin with the pro men, at 9:40 am. I stood in line for 45 minutes!!!!! Yes, 45 minutes, waiting for the #$%^! Port-a-pot!!!!!! Once I started looking for my wave start, I realized that we had camped out in the furtherest spot from the start.......awesome! So, I was running around like a mad woman, asking everyone where my wave was........It sounds like a simple thing, but when you are around 45,000 other runners, 50% who are foreign and don't speak English, it's not so simple. I was in the blue wave--easy enough......except for the fact that there were 3 different bibs that were blue. Blue bibs for wave start 1, blue bibs for wave start 2, and I don't even know what the other bibs were. A guy directed me to the wrong blue wave........ughh.....I will spare you the rest of the details, but I ended up running an extra mile to find the area I needed to be. I finally found my wave start--it was 9:30am.......whew! 10 minutes before the wave takes off.....except for the fact that they had blocked off my wave already and wouldn't allow me to jump in. Fantastic!!! This is getting off to a bad start, I told myself! I proceeded to jump in with the 2nd wave, whose numbers begin with 23,000. I was in the 9,000 wave........yeah, that's how many people were in front of where I was to begin :( Oh well.......what can you do? The positive side to this is that I did get to jump in at the beginning of the wave, which meant I didn't have a large crowd in front of me, and since my original wave was 20 minutes ahead of me, I had lots of room before I caught them! I said a prayer for God to watch over me and everyone during the race and we were off!!
The first mile was over Veranzo-Narrows bridge (sp?). It was almost 1 mile long I believe. Coming down the other side of the bridge, my watch said I hit a 7:06 pace.....can we say "not good?" Ughh.......I kept telling myself to slow down....there were many hills to come and I couldn't explode in this race from going out too fast. Lots of crowd support (amazing crowd support-much more than Boston!!!), adequate water stops, etc. I kept around a 7:33 pace until probably around mile 19? I need to go back and look at my watch. There were lots of bridges, which correlated to lots of hills!! I couldn't believe I was holding this pace, especially since my original goal was to go out slow on the 1st mile, then hit 7:45 splits evenly every mile. I just decided to go with it, and if I slowed, I slowed. I felt pretty good until Central Park. The last 3 miles are where I struggled. This is where hills are where you don't want to see hills:( Your legs are tired and beat up, and the last 3 miles of a marathon are a mental and physical struggle anyway. I made myself go from mile to mile. This always seems to work for me.....if I look at the big picture and start calculating how many miles I have left or how much time I have left out there, my mental toughness goes. Well, it worked. I hit pretty even splits at the end, except for mile 24, where there was a pretty significant hill thorugh the park. I heard my name around mile 25, and saw Matt in the crowd! That was a good pick-me-up that I needed so bad at that time. During the race, one of the large bridges was covered. My garmin watch got a little off-track from losing signal, so I was excited coming into the finish line. My watch said I was going to break 3:22. I was pushing to do this, because I was pretty close. I was a little disappointed to see that I didn't have a 3:21:53. (I know that's being very picky, but if you're a competitive runner, you understand trying to get under a certain minute mark if you're really close :) Looking back, I now wonder if I had started out slower around that 7:45 pace, if I could have picked it up and had a stronger race at the end. I am proud to have PR'd, nonetheless, and thank God for keeping me safe throughout the race and injury-free through some pretty high-volume training.
Great race!!!!! Tough, hilly course, but the spectators were out of this WORLD!!!! Even if you wanted to stop, they weren't going to let you!! One of the funny (or Matt might disagree :) situations we ran into during our vacation was the fact that I packed lots of boots----actually just one pair of black boots with heels-----problem was most of my outfits required the black boots to match :) Now, if you have ever tried to wear high heel boots after a marathon, let me tell you it's no fun.............to top off the "no fun", try to do it in NYC, where the majority of every day requires walking. Top that off with the fact that we had to catch multiple subways, which require steps to get down to the subway.........Matt was not a happy camper trying to walk "Grandma Cassell" around on Monday after the Sunday marathon ;) We quickly (or not so quickly with my slow self) made a trip to a store to buy some FLAT boots ;)
I won't make this blog too much longer----I've probably lost your attention by now ;) We did LOTS in NYC though------saw the play "Wicked"---absolutely wonderful!!! Central Park had to be my favorite place---we did a couple runs before and after the marathon, and it has to be the most beautiful during the Fall. Amazing colors and just gorgeous scenery everywhere!!! 
We visited the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock, Natural History Museum, wax museum, Dylan's candy store, 5th avenue (Tiffany's, Saks, Versace), 9/11 memorial, Chinatown and Little Italy,
lots of badddd eating (John's pizza, Ray's pizza, Junior's cheesecake, Pommes Frites belgian fries, Carmine's italian, Tao, Mesa Grill,Magnolia Bakery, Planet Hollywood, ........oh my gosh did I eat all of that junk????!!!!!!!!!!)
I am going on a diet today!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!! At least we had a healthy breakfast and lunch the majority of the time ;) Does that even it out?:)
We had a great vacation---
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I am blessed to have a husband whom I enjoy being around so much and that totally "gets" me.......high-heel boots and all Now it's "Back to Life-Back to Reality"(as the song goes:) Things are going great for us right now---busy, busy, busy!! (Well,not Matt, he has a very laid-back month---jealous!!!!) We had an awesome triathlon party on Monday evening with pro triathlete Justin Daerr. He spoke to the group and it was a fun night for sure. It was fun getting to visit with triathlon friends we haven't seen much of since tri season as well. Training picked up for me again this week--Memphis marathon is only 3 more weeks away---hope my body is recovered and ready to go again. I'm finally feeling almost back to normal--my speed is there, just not the tiredness that proceeds a marathon. Matt is going to smoke this one as long as he can fight off the cramps he sometimes get in endurance events. Lastly, I introduced a close friend to Pinelake, our church, this past Sunday. She loves it and I'm so glad she might start attending regularly soon :)
All for now---------have a great rest of the week!!
