The weekend kicked off with a hell of a long run on Saturday morning - my best so far this season. We ran an out and back up the west side highway, which you all know is my personal favorite place to run in the city, and we had such a great time! Legs were strong, lungs were strong, I'm loving the people in my pace group, and we were dead on as far as pacing. Can't ask for anything more than that!! Throw in a post-run ice bath and a Brooklyn brewery beer and I do believe I've found my groove for this season. OHH YEAH!!
Then Sunday it was on to spectating the NYC marathon. I headed down to Greenpoint to mile 12.5 to cheer at one of the official TNT cheer stations, which was awesome. There's an excitement in the air as you see the NYPD motorcycles come around the bend, and then the press van, and then finally the lead women runners! Those ladies are FAST, let me just tell you. They go flying by so fast and have the most amazing physiques, and you can't help but envy and admire them. Next up are the lead men, and it's the exact same rush (except I don't really envy a man's physique...). It makes you want to run if you aren't already a runner, and if you are already a runner it makes you want to get faster. A LOT faster.
The crowd of runners starts to thicken and we were all obsessively checking our phones to track our friends who were running, and then alternately obsessively scanning the crowd to see if we could spot anyone in TNT purple. I am stoked to say that I saw EVERY single person I was trying to spot!!! First up was Rory, who ran with Grandpa's initials on his back. He is amazingly fast and such an inspiration. Rory runs for his dad, who passed away from leukemia in 2002, and I was so grateful he shared his miles with me and my Grandpa. He is amazing. Then I saw Brett and coach Pam within a couple minutes of each other, coach Peter ran by and actually spotted ME first, Herb cruised past, and then coach Dari came running and stopped for some cheers and a hug!
The TNT station was 100% female, so a ton of the male runners were waving, winking, and blowing kisses at us, which was entertaining and hilarious. Ethan Zohn, who won Survivor a few years back and is actually a cancer survivor himself, pointed to us as he ran by, cheering "Go Team!". Stuff like that is pretty awesome. I was also getting a lot of love from the crowd for my sign, which can be viewed below :) A lot of people were running with charities, a lot of people were running for loved ones, and a lot of people were just running to run. Regardless of their reason, I was screaming my ass off for every single one of them. I have no voice left, but it was completely worth it! It was incredibly inspiring and made me really, really excited to run my race in January.
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| My sign for the NYC marathoners :) |
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