My NYC marathon experience.
If all you want to read is race day, skip ahead. I'll post a big heading that says "RACE DAY RECAP," but if you want to know about my whole trip experience then read on!
Prologue: I decided that I would finally run the NYC
marathon after mulling it over for years back in January 2014 just after
completing the Disneyworld Marathon. I
had such a great time traveling to run that race, and after my wife’s treatment
for breast cancer in 2013 I thought what a great way to both run another major
marathon AND raise money and awareness for cancer treatment and research.
I left for NYC early, EARLY, on Saturday November 1,
2014. I had a 6am flight out of Chicago
since I wanted to be at home on Friday for Halloween in order to take my kids
out for trick or treating. I enjoy it
too, so I didn’t want to miss it. It was
miserable on Friday thou, cold and it actually snowed. It was so bad in fact that the flights out
of Chicago to NY were cancelled. So it
turned out that having the Saturday morning flight was a good thing.
On the plane ride there I flew Spirit. I “upgraded” to an exit row for a little
extra leg room. I didn’t want to cramp
up on the way there. Next to me, just
before we took off, a woman sat down in the seat right across the isle in the
exit row. It wasn’t her seat assignment,
but the flight attendant didn’t have time to argue with her so after she agreed
to help in an emergency off we went.
Just as we began to taxi away from the gate, she started to
rummage through her purse frantically.
She began swearing also. I was
afraid they were going to stop the flight if it got worse, I had a feeling she
was looking for sedatives. I did NOT
want this flight to be delayed so I tried to talk her down a bit, and luckily
she found them. She took the pills, I
kept her talking (which really wasn’t hard for this woman…..) and eventually
she passed out from the medicine.
Yeah…she would have been a big help in an emergency.
Once she was out another passenger asked if I was a doctor
or something. I said “no” and asked her
why? She said it was for the way I
calmed the woman down. Really, I told
the passenger I just didn’t want to miss the marathon for this wacko. Call me selfish, but after all that training
and fund raising – nothing was gonna stop me if I could help it.
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| I finally made it to NYC!! |
After the short flight to NYC, I took the bus and train to
my hotel to check in. It was a small
room – very small, but since it was just me I could do for a couple of nights
and it was very close to Central Park where I had to get the bus early Sunday
to the race, and I could walk back to it after the race. So Manhattan is expensive, but I wanted the
convienience.
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| Can you believe how small this room is?! I'm sure that's not a standard length bed. My feet were off the edge. Welcome to Manhattan - I hate to tell you how much this room was a night. |
After the hotel I went to the expo at the Javits
center. It was HUGE. Such a big crowd. I was shoulder to shoulder with people almost
the whole time. Really I didn’t’ see
anything about the expo that made it different than any other race expo, except
for the size and the crowd. I tried to
get my packet and check in with the American Cancer Society (ACS) table and
then get out as fast as possible. I
wanted to get off my feet and save my legs as much as I could for the
race.
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| At the expo, ready to get my New York On! |
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| They asked for photos to show during the dinner of the reasons why we were running - my wife and kids we up on the big screen! |
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| Carbo loading with the rest of the ACS team the night before the race |
So a special thanks to everyone who donated!
At my table were runners from NY, and some from LA. The NYers were ready for the race, but the LA
crowd was worried about the temps. It
was forecasted to be in the low 40s, but it might be overcast. So while it is better to be cooler than
warmer to run a marathon, upper 40s and sunny is WAY different than lower 40s
and cloudy.
After some last minute camaraderie and carbs, I went back to
my hotel and tried to get to bed by 9pm.
I would set my alarm for 4am the next morning, but with daylight savings
time that would mean I’d get a full 8 hours of sleep. I felt rest anyway, but a little more would
be good.
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| I should probably stick to running and avoid the red carpet, but I felt like a superstar for being in the top ten fundraisers thanks to all your support. |
"RACE DAY RECAP"
I woke up Sunday at 4am.
I set two alarms at 4am, then at 4:10, and I also had a wake up call for
4:15 just in case. I was up and at’em
with the first alarm. It was finally
RACE DAY!
After 10 months of training, of swimming, of running, of
injuries, of rehab, of fundraising…it was finally time.
I laid out all my clothes the night before. I quickly got dressed for the race, had a
little breakfast in my room, and did my final mental checks. I had to catch a bus at 6am to the start
line, but it was only 2 blocks from my hotel, so I watched some ESPN for a
while to stay loose. Just before I headed
out to the bus I put on the “disposable” clothes I bought at goodwill in
Chicago for before the race. I had a
hat, some gloves, a couple of fleece pull overs, a winter jacket, and some
sweat pants. None were really my size or
style, so I didn’t think twice about knowing I’d be dumping them before the
race.
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| My race day inspiration. Ready to get pinned onto my shirt. |
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| I had to group the ribbons into packs, or they wouldn't have all fit on my shirt! |
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| All ready to go. Let's do this! |
I walked over to the buses, and found the ACS team bus. I saw a guy with an Illinois hat on, so being
an Illini myself I sat next to him. It
was going to be his first marathon, and he was just about to turn 50. So we talked a bit. I gave him a little advice, and congratulated
him on what would be his first marathon.
I thought it would be a quick ride to Staten Island. Especially at 6am on a Sunday morning. It was a 90 minute ride! It took forever to get there.
I kept thinking, I know this is the finish line that we
started from….how far away are they driving us?! I was going to be running back this way.
So everyone raves about the NYC marathon and how great it
is. It is a great race, and if you’ve
never done it, you should. BUT….Chicago
is better. Why? Here’s reason #1 why Chicago is better.
So after this 90 minute drive across the Verrazano-narrow’s
bridge you wait. And wait. And wait some more. Then you keep waiting. Why?
Because everybody has to get across the bridge and THEN everybody runs
back across. Plus it’s 6 lanes wide,
which is plenty wide for a bridge, but with 50,000 runners they have to stagger
us. So while I got to the start at 7:30am, I didn’t start running until
almost 10am. Two and a half hours
later.
Plenty of time to stand around, and get COLD. The ACS team had a tent, with some bagels and
coffee/water, but I didn’t want to eat or drink too much before the race. The tent was supposed to have sides, but the
morning of the race had HIGH winds.
Really high.
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| Waiting around in the ACS tent. It was cold, but seeing signs like this made me feel not so bad. |
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| Me and the rest of the ACS Team DetermiNation runner, just trying to stay warm for a couple hours. |
There were sustained winds of about 20 mph for most of the
race, and gusts over 40. More on the
wind later, but for the pre-race tent that meant that the sides had to come off
or they were afraid the tent would blow over.
Yay! More cold wind directly
on us. I was glad to have the extra
clothes, they kept me warm enough, but it still was terrible just waiting
around. The ACS team did a great job to
try and keep our spirits up and minds distracted, but there was a quiet it felt
like to me, as we all contemplated what lay ahead of us that day. 26.2 miles of really cold and windy
road.
As 9:30 rolled around I was told to make my way to the
start. They sent us off in waves, and my
wave left around 10. The next 30 minutes
went pretty quick. They heard you into
lines, we got to the base of the bridge, they had large bins for the throw away
clothes that would be donated back to goodwill (how’s that for recycling?) and
I took off all the disposable clothes expect for a long sleeve fleece pull
over. I kept that on, it was still
pretty cold and I didn’t know how long till I’d warm up enough from
running.
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| The Verrazano-narrow’s bridge behind me. Funny, it doesn't look so windy from here :-) |
So Reason #1 for why the Chicago marathon is better is you
don’t have to wait as long to get started.
Finally we started the race.
If that seemed anti-climatic, it kinda was. I’ll be honest. Of all the races I’ve run, this one seemed to
go off kinda bland. Maybe I was too
caught up in my head, maybe it’s grand because it’s NYC…but I don’t know. Disney had fireworks for each and every wave
of runners. I’m just saying, it didn’t
start with too much pizzazz.
Reason #2 why Chicago (or maybe any other marathon is
better) is that in addition to just a lack of “wow” to the start there is no
cheering for the first 4 or 5 miles of this run. Why? Because only runners are allowed on the
bridge – and the bridge is almost 3 miles long.
Then it takes a while after the bridge to get far enough into Brooklyn
for there to be people. And it’s not
like there was a big crowd of people waiting for us. There were seriously like two guys drinking
coffee, saying in their NY accents “welcome to Brooklyn”
So while the crowd may have a bigger number of people,
because it does get better as the race goes on, I think on average the crowd is
WAY better in Chicago.
Back to the start of the race thou. So the first mile, mile and a half, is uphill
across the bridge. I was on the lower
portion of the bridge. I don’t know if
the wind was worse above of below, but it was bad. Maybe the worst wind I’ve ever run in. And it was pushing me all over the
place. I don’t think it was ever at my
back. At times I was literally pushed
sideways a couple of feet. I didn’t get
knocked over, but I’m sure some people did.
In fact they shortened the course by three miles for the
wheelchair athletes, starting them past the bridge, because they were afraid of
the high winds knocking their
wheelchairs over. It was that
bad.
In fact my first mile was 12:32. It would be my second slowest mile for the
day. For a frame of reference my goal
time was 9:09 per mile. There were a lot
of reasons why the first mile was so slow.
There was the wind, the uphill, and the crowd. You can only run as fast as the people in
front of you. And at mile 1 it is
crowded. In NYC mile 1 is VERY
crowded.
When I saw how fast, or rather slow, that first mile was – I
got a little panicked. I actually
didn’t think it was that slow – I had felt pretty good considering the
wind. But to see the time was a
different story. But I did remember that
the worst part of the marathon was at the very start, and that once we got a
bit farther it was downhill.
And downhill helped.
A lot. Mile 2 came in at 7:47
which was my fastest mile. Between the
first two I was now 2 minutes “behind” my ideal pace goal of finishing this
race under 4 hours – or 3:59:59 to be exact.
I ran the next 9 miles pretty strong. I felt good.
I had a string of 6 miles just under 9 minutes per mile to make up some
time. The next 6 were also below goal
pace by a second or two. I was chipping
away at the slow start.
The wind kept blowing, but it wasn’t as strong. The hills were still there, but they weren’t
as steep. I knew the worst was behind
me, but could I hold the pace?
Back to the end of the bridge just before mile 3. After that crazy start the sun finally broke
through the clouds, and the wind seemed to calm down just as we passed the
bridge. It was amazing how many runners
just started stripping off clothes while running. I joined in, taking off my fleece pull over,
but rather than throw it away I tied it around my waist. I didn’t know what would happen later in the
day, and it turns out I’m glad I kept it.
At this point now I was in my race t-shirt which I decorated
on the back with ribbons from my sponsors with the names of people in their
lives affected by cancer. I had about 50
of them pinned to my shirt. I was afraid
it would weigh the back down and choke me!
Lucky for me, I made up a sign of my name to pin to the front of the
shirt so people would cheer for me along the way, and it balanced out the shirt
like a sandwich board. I also had a
ribbon for Brenda on the front next to my heart for extra motivation as I
ran.
The name sign worked.
Tons of people, when there were people, called out “Go BEN” or “Run BEN
Run!” It all helped.
What really helped I think was all the little kids trying to
give high fives to the runners. Whenever
I saw some little ones out there waiting to get a high five I made my way to
the side to give them one. I thought of
my own kids back at home, and it helped lift my spirits and energize me. I think the parents somehow knew that, and
would say “THANKS BEN!” as I ran past.
At the half way mark, 13.1 miles in, I was at 1:58. I was doing good! Right on pace, but I could tell I was started
to tire and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hold that pace for the next 13.1
miles.
About a half hour later, around mile 16 I hit the wall.
Not great. I had to
stop. Mile 16 was 12:37. But if you are paying attention, and you
caught that mile 1 was my 2nd slowest mile, you’ll know that I found
a second wind. I think I found a 3rd,
4th, 5th, and possibly 6th wind along the rest
of the way as well. It was a
struggle.
But a few things kept me going. For one the crowds started getting bigger,
and BIGGER. Sometimes there would be a
portion of the course that would be empty, usually another bridge, and when we
got past it there would be a wall of people just screaming at you to keep
going. And for some reason it
works!
A couple times another ACS team member would see me and give
me a pat on the back to keep going. I
would try to do the same. I think it
helps us both a little.
Somewhere around mile 17, I forget exactly, I saw in the
distance a giant Chicago flag waving.
It’s very iconic. The white flag
with two horizontal blue bars and 4 red, 6 pointed stars between them – you
can’t miss it. In fact I made my name
plate up to match it. I had a white
background with two of the red 6-pointed stars on either side of my name in red
letters.
When I saw the flag I ran to over to that side, and yelled
out “Hey Chicago” while pointing at my name and got a huge response from the
group yelling “HEY BEN!!!” back at me.
This kept me going fairly steadily until around mile
19. At this point two things
happened. One I switched tactics from my
“run-don’t stop- even if it’s slow” approach to a “run-then walk-then run”
approach. I would run for about 3
minutes, then walk for 2 minutes the rest of the way. And it worked pretty well. The rest of the miles were all about 10 or 11
minutes, but I kept going pretty steady.
This is when I came across another ACS team member,
Doug.
I didn’t know him, never even seen him before, but we had on
the Team DetermiNation jerseys so we had something in common. I still had a bit of steam left so as I
passed him by I came up along side to give him some encouragement and then kept
on going.
It wasn’t too long after that that I really started to hit
the wall. I had to stop and walk again,
and that’s when Doug comes up behind me and tells me to keep going!
So I did. I started
running, passed Doug who was walking, had to stop, he passed me while running,
and repeat. We did this for another mile
or so. Then finally we decided to just
run together.
I kept the time, we’d run for a few minutes, walk for a few
minutes. For me this was so
helpful. Knowing that Doug was right
there with me kept me pushing on during the run, and when the time came to stop
walking to get running again. I truly
believe that if it weren’t for Doug I’d have walked a lot more those last 4
miles or so and probably finished about 20 to 30 minutes later.
So thank you Doug!
It was actually kinda fun to get to know somebody along at
the end of the race. We got to know each
other a bit, and with the wonder of social media are now connected on
twitter. I don’t know if we’ll ever see
each other or run together again as he’s on the east coast– but who knows?
As we approached central park and the got to the final mile
or so of the race I had to leave Doug behind.
He was starting to hurt a bit and he told me to go on. I wasn’t in much better shape, but I reached
down deep as far as I could and gave it everything I had left. That last mile winding through central park
was MUCH different than I imagined it would be.
In my mind while preparing for the race I pictured the
throngs on people shouting encouragement, and being overcome with emotions
about how my wife had gone through such a terrible year, and especially about
all the people who supported me in my training symbolized by the 50-some
ribbons I was wearing on my back with the names of their loved ones who’d
battled cancer.
I’m not a crier, but at times in training I often felt that
once I crossed the finish line I’d be overwhelmed with emotion and would start
to cry.
Nope. Not even
close. Sorry.
At this point I was kinda hurting. I had nothing left and I just wanted to stop
running. Due to security precautions
Central Park was closed and only a relative few thousand people were allowed at
the finish line. Not much of a
crowd. Also the course at the end is
kinda hilly and kinda winding. It made
it really hard to know how much further I had to go.
I was tired, I was getting a bit cold, and in general just
pissed off for no good reason. So when I
finally did cross the finish line 4 hours and 20 minutes later I felt an
amazing amount of relief and satisfaction, but knowing I wasn’t able to finish
in under 4 hours was a bit of a downer.
I’ve come to terms with knowing that to run a sub 4 marathon
for me would have taken the perfect conditions of a flat course, open roads,
and perfect weather. I had none of those
things. It’s hilly, crowded, and the
wind that day was almost unbelievable.
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| FINISHED! The sweet taste of achievement. |
So all things considered, I actually kinda rocked this
race. It was still better than my
Chicago Marathon time of 4:32 from 2006 and just a few seconds slower than my
Disney Marathon time in January. Plus I
raised over $7,600 for charity and that’s the best thing about the whole race I
think. I feel like I made a
difference. It might be a drop in the
bucket, but it’s something.
So back to the finish line and Reason #3 why Chicago is
better than NYC. Remember when I said
that Central Park was closed off for security reasons. Well at the end of the race they made us
walk, WALK!!! another mile plus out of the park which was insane! There was only one exit out of the finish
area and it was in the opposite direction of where my hotel was. ARGGG!!
As you walked along the exit route they threw these big blue fleece
lined ponchos over us to keep us warm, but it was weird seeing all these blue
figures waddling down the road. I
thought it looked like some kind of weird zombie apocalypse.
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| The Zombie Apocalypse - also known as the long slow walk out of Central Park after running a marathon |
So annoying. Chicago
is much more open at the finish line.
They have recovery areas, and you can leave in almost any
direction.
After I cleared the exit path, and made it back to my hotel,
I started my recovery routine. I took
and ice bath, drank a lot of Gatorade, ate some protein in the form of beef
jerky, stretched a bit, and took a quick nap.
I had planned to see a friend of mine from Chicago who’d
moved out to NYC a couple months earlier, Kitty.
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| Me and Kitty in Time Square after the race. |
She was nice enough to come to my hotel, and we walked to a
nearby bar to grab a drink and a bite. I
of course wore my medal.
That I will say was awesome.
To see all the other marathoners with their medals on was so cool. It was like we were all in a club together. I’d congratulate them, they’d do the same to
me. Even the locals who didn’t run were
giving us all high fives as we walked down the street.
When we got to the bar and asked for a table, they said it
would be about a 15 minute wait. I held
up my medal and asked “is it REALLY 15 minutes?” in a sarcastic tone to be
funny…and the hostess said “yes, but we’re gonna buy your first drink for being
a marathoner!”
How cool was that?
I had a couple of beers and a giant greasy burger. Just what the doctor ordered.
I had a blast catching up with Kitty, and then we walked
over to Time Square. It’s always a busy
place. Even at 10pm on a Sunday night
the place is jumping. There were some
‘characters’ looking to make a few bucks, and I took a cool photo with a
Spiderman character. That was fun.
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| Battling Spider-man. Not too shabby for just running a marathon! |
Kitty then got on a train home, and I walked back to the
hotel. I had a late flight on Monday so
I could sleep in a bit.
Monday morning I woke up, packed, checked out but left my
bag at the hotel so I could kill some time sight seeing until my late night
flight.
Before going sight seeing I wanted to get my medal engraved
with my name and time on it. So I went
back to Central Park where a they had a tent set up for this and waited in line
for 2 hours! Then I had to pay $25 for
the engraving! Welcome to NYC, it’s
crowded and expensive. I had a great
time talking to the other runners in line with me, but sheesh! Reason #4 why Chicago is better, they engrave
the medals for free and it’s WAY faster.
After getting the medal engraved I ate breakfast from a food
truck, grabbed a slice of pizza for lunch (REASON #5 WHY CHICAGO IS BETTER) and
just wandered Manhattan a bit.
I made it
a point to walk by the Freedom Tower and to visit the 9/11 memorial. It’s a really moving place, and I think they
did a good job to create a space to commemorate the events of that day. I could only spend an hour or so there, but
you could easily spend a whole day.
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| Enjoying a waffle and reading about the marathon in the NY Times, did you know they put the finishers names in the paper. I found mine! Very cool. |
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| At the 9/11 memorial |
By now it was time to head home. I made my way back to the hotel for my bag,
got on the train to the airport, and eventually to the gate where my plane
would be.
I should say this about my training. I spent a lot of time running on hills. There aren’t many in Chicago so I had to
drive 30 miles outside the city to find a forest preserve that had some hills
to run. I did this every weekend for
months. I think it paid off, because
even thou I didn’t break the 4 hour barrier like I hoped, I felt really good
the next day! That was key since I had
to walk down so many steps to get to the trains in NYC which are all
underground.
Wearing my NYC marathon medal through the airport I could
see some others wearing theirs – though the number of runners was much smaller
now.
For some final thoughts on this experience I will say the
following.
1) I am so grateful to all of you who donated to my
fundraising campaign. You not only made
it possible for me to participate in the race, but you inspired me to achieve
much more that I ever dreamed was possible.
2) I don’t think I will EVER run the NYC marathon
again. It’s amazing, it’s unlike any
other race I’ve done, and I see no need to do it again! It’s expensive. Really expensive.
3) This may be the last marathon I ever do. I say that now, but I also said that in
January when I ran the Disney marathon.
So who knows what the future will hold.
Lots of decision/factors go into running a marathon. Especially when you have a family to
consider. Which leads to my next thought
4) I will not be running in or training for a marathon in
2015. I ran more in 2014 that I ever
have before. With 3 marathons, 5 half
marathons, a 10K, a 5K, and all the miscellaneous training runs I covered over 1,200 miles. That was a lot of time away from the family,
and a lot of time Brenda had to take care of the kids on her own. I promised I’d take a break from these
endurance events in 2015, and I think I need it. I’m kinda looking forward to it.
But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll think of something
interesting for 2015.
If you read this whole recap, THANK YOU. I wrote it over the course of a couple months
from my notes and photos, and didn’t post it until a couple months after the
race. I wanted to make sure I recapped
the experience for myself, but I really appreciate those that read it.
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| THANK YOU! |
