Last week was the NYC Marathon and I watched the first part on TV. I loved watching the elegance of each runner taking a stride. These elite runners are amazing. They take long hard strides and as you watch, you can see each and every muscle in their bodies working—their legs, core and even arms helping them along the way. They keep on going strong.
I sat and wondered if I could run the NYC Marathon. I’m signed up for my first Half Marathon in Disney this January, but perhaps my longer term goal should be to run the 26.2-mile race.
I started to do some research about the route. According to many websites and even the television announcers, the NYC Marathon is the hardest marathon in the world. It’s hard because of the steep inclines and declines. They say that the Verrazano Bridge at the start of the race is one of the hardest parts because of the incline. And they also say that the decline doesn’t make up for the incline.
This is a hard marathon to do. The woman who came in second place from the USA, Shalane Flanagan, is an elite runner who has been running for years and yet, she never did a marathon before. She ran this race in 2 hours, 28 minutes and 40 seconds. She was 20 seconds behind first place.
Watching the race, I sat in awe as these elite women took their long strides and were able to keep it up throughout the entire marathon. What a feat!
The Chilean miner who was trapped in the mines and ran every day in the mines while he was trapped also intrigued me. Watching him run was so motivating. Watching all these people run this race was amazing to me. Could you imagine doing this?
Interestingly, the NYC Marathon has various start times for runners. Most of the “average” runners are in the last grouping and today; they waited more than five hours in Staten Island before they took off. The runners ran from Staten Island into Brooklyn to Queens and then the Bronx before finishing in Central Park in Manhattan. They had a perfect day for it. It was 40+ degrees.
I would be in the “average” group. Do I think I could do this? Running uphill is hard. The biggest incline I’ve done so far is running up the ramp of the Boardwalk in Long Beach. But, that’s such a short distance. I’ve never done an uphill for more than a mile, which is something you need to be able to do prior to the race.
But I would like to do this. And maybe one day I will. I need to be able to run 13.1 first in order to do 26.2, don’t you think?
I looked into what it takes to get into this race. It is done on a lottery system, for those of you who do not know. The lottery opens tomorrow at noon. I guess I will see if I get in on the lottery system, but it’s highly unlikely. The other ways to get into the race is either to run nine NYC races throughout the year starting in January 2011 or raising money for a charity. Personally, I like the charity idea.
Then, I thought, if I am serious about doing the NYC Marathon, shouldn’t I try to do the Half Marathon first? So, I looked into signing up for the NYC Half Marathon in March. I noticed that they too have a lottery, or you can run for charity by raising in excess of $1000. I looked at the different participating charities and thought that they were all worthy causes. The more I thought about it, the charity route seemed to be the way to go. Since all are worthy causes, how do you choose?
To be continued …
Related articles
- A Runner’s Diary: Watching the NYC Marathon (blogcritics.org)
- NYC Marathon Course Map: Famous Marathon Lives Up to Reputation in 2010 (bleacherreport.com)
