Nike Women's Marathon Race Report 5

It was no joke.

The pond was total hell.

First of all, it was this loop that lasted about 4 miles. Right at the end. And it was on a highway. AND it was only about the width of a running path in Central Park. My legs hurt so badly by this point and I was thinking of anything I could to keep my mind off of how many miles I still had left.

I promised myself that when I got to waterstops that I could walk through them. I needed to just WALK for a little bit, but couldn't justify it because I KNEW I would slow down. I was following a girl in pink, but she started to gradually get away from me, and I didn't care about time anymore anyway.

The first mile into the pond loop I stepped on someone's GU wrapper and it stuck to the bottom of my shoe. So with every step I kept hearing/feeling scrape, scrape, scrape. Then this girl behind me yelled out "Hey! New York!" I took all of my energy to turn around. "Let me get that off of your shoe! That must be driving you crazy."

I stopped, and tried to step on it while lifting my other foot up and blabbered "But...I just...it's not...I can't..." I felt tired and stupid. She was like "Don't worry. I've got it." and lifted my leg up so she could get it. "NOW you can run!" I thanked her profusely. It's the little things in those last miles. :)

The rest of the loop was pretty much an uneventful, horrible time. I was glad that there were a lot of TNT coaches from other chapters cheering. I walked a good deal of that loop. I so didn't care about my time anymore.

And when I got to the "Chocolate Mile" at 22, I actually considered eating the free Ghiradelli chocolate. I don't even really like chocolate all that much. But I wanted it badly. I also knew I was having a crap race and that I've never had chocolate during a race and that this probably wasn't a good idea. I wavered between getting it and passing it up for the entire mile. I was also craving homemade Rice Krispie Treats right at that moment. I wanted them more than anything. I skipped them though and opted for my last chocolate GU. Definitely not as yummy.