2014 NYC Marathon recap- Part 1-leading up to the race.

This past weekend I ran the NYC Marathon for the second time in my life.  The first year I ran it was in 2006 and I knew absolutely nothing about anything.  I was so naive that I thought it was "weak" to drink at water stops and I had 1 gel the entire race.  Since then, I have clearly learned a lot and have raced plenty.

So how'd my race go?  Well, sort of good, sort of bad, mostly neutral.  I'll talk about the week leading up to the race here and my next post will be about the actual race itself.

The weeks leading up to the race I was ready. My training was good, I felt good, and knew this was going to be a good race for me.  But during my taper weeks something happened.  The dreaded IT Band started to flare up ONE WEEK before the race during an easy final run.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  On an easy light run, it started?  During my taper, it started.  That's crap.  If anything, it should have acted up weeks/months ago.  But it waited until the week before to start? Come on.

So the week leading up the race was mostly spent recovering, spinning, and just as much therapy as I could give it.  For the most part it worked and my legs felt fresh.  I went to the Expo and spent as little time there as possible since there really wasn't anything great that I saw and nothing I really needed.

I went on 1 run on the Thursday before the race as part of the Timex One Relay, which was amazing since I got to test out their new GPS One watch and they donated $600 to the charity of my choice.  My legs felt good.  The IT Band hurt a little but nothing huge.

So Race morning arrived, and since I raised money for the Achilles International Foundation, I was able to take their private bus to the start.  I could have taken the water ferry to the start but I chose the bus because I wanted to meet some of the amazing Achilles athletes and I thought the bus would be a better/faster route.  So I woke up at 4 am to eat, got ready and got to the bus at 5:15 AM. This is where everything started to get weird.  We were told to get to the buses early and once the were filled they would depart.  What was omitted was that ALL the buses had to be filled in order to get our police escort to the start.  Well, we were on our bus at 5:30 and we didnt start to move until 6:50AM.  That's a long time to stay on a bus.  On a bus with NO bathrooms.  I'm sure you can see where this is going.  All of these marathoners eating and drinking to stay hydrated and we had no place to go.

So let's just say there were a few people who got creative, some more than others.  Some had no shame or remorse and some just didn't care.  There were plenty of empty water bottles that were suddenly filled, and some other items that were filled.  All I can say is that I sunk to a new low and can only thank a fellow passenger on that bus for helping me out.  For the sake of just being plain ol' nasty, I won't go into details, but my friends and family heard one funny story Sunday night.  I guess I didn't pack everything that I needed for my race.

So after the bus finally got to Staten Island for the start, I had to make my way across the field where I was dropped off to my corral and start area.  Since there are 3 start areas, of course mine would be at least a 15-20 minute walk away.  And it was coooold.  Like 36 degree cold with winds of 40 mph. We'll get into that in bit, but those winds didnt help the day.

But I finally made it to my start village, sat down, ate my PBJ sandwich and made some race day friends.  At about 9:30, they loaded us into the starting shoot and we were ready to go.  I would have liked a smoother race morning, but all being said, it wasn't too bad.  I just needed to wait for the start cannon to go off.

To find out about how my race went, my post will be up in a few days.

Just loading all of us in the corral

Trying to find a spot to sit against a fence

Everyone just trying to stay warm

All of us huddled waiting to start.
(The guy in the middle will play an important part of my race)

An Ominous Sky, but we're soon to be off