The NYC Marathon!

OK. I have a completely new respect for all of the cheerers out there!

This weekend, my friends ran the New York City Marathon. It was so exciting! I watched it last year, but it is so much more fun when you actually know people in the marathon. I had this schedule all figured out with public transit and everything. As I planned, we would be able to see my friends at three places in three boroughs.

Stop number one was Brooklyn, around mile 4. For NYC, it wasn't very crowded, so this was a great place to see the girls. They were wearing these feathery diddly-bopper things on their heads to make them easier to find and THANK GOODNESS because the NYC marathon is so crowded...I mean NON-STOP runners.

Mile 4 is also complicated because depending on which wave you were in, you could be on opposite sides of the street. Bill and I got there early with my favorite sign that I made (I made four of them). This one said "2476 calories burnt = 17 beers!" We got lots of laughs, thumbs up and just general attention for it. Some people even took pictures. And we saw GINA!!! I was so excited and screamed her name as she ran by! Bill and I ducked back into the subway and RAN under the street to see Pam on the other side! Yay! We saw her! Then we ducked back into the subway and RAN under the street again to see Donna. (The girls were all in different corrals). No luck. And we were getting super close to the time we needed to be on the train to our next stop in Queens. I was bummed, but we had to run to catch the train before we saw Donna. :(

Next stop? Mile 15 in Queens.

This stop was majorly crowded. Bill and I were pushy and got up to the front right before the bridge. The cops kept pushing everyone back, which made me think that I was not going to be able to run with the girls for a little while like I had planned. We had separate candy for each of them as requested, and I was trying to figure out the best way to hand it out. Gina would be first, so I grabbed a handful of candy oranges in one hand and my stick of BodyGlide in the other. Hmmmmm. No Gina. No Gina. My eyes were scanning everywhere for their headbands. I told Bill to get out Pam's Skittles just in case we missed her. We saw all these people that were running AFTER her, so I thought either we had missed her, or she was injured. I was really worried then. Bill said now I know how he feels when he is looking for me. My eyes were getting crazy from all of the scanning of the runners. I told Bill when I ran it next year I was going to wear florescent pink. In this crowd, even their headbands didn't help.

I put the oranges away and grabbed Donna's licorice while simultaneously texting my friend Elida, who was at 23, to see if she had seen Gina.

No Donna either. I was getting really bummed. I felt REALLY bad because they had specifically assigned us to Queens because no one was going to be there. Ptttt.

We hopped on the train and headed to stop 3, which was mile 25.

I got a text from Elida saying Gina just past mile 23. Perfect! That meant I had about 18 minutes before she ran by me. I started scanning the runners again.

Of course, Bill and I only saw ONE of our friends at 25 and it was Pam. We frantically shouted her name, but she was in the zone :)

D'oh. Epic fail.

Luckily, we all met at a bar afterwards to celebrate. I found out that:

1. Gina SMASHED her goal of beating 4 hours by getting a 3:56!!!
2. Pam took 27 minutes off of her January marathon time!!!
3. Donna, Miss 11:49-Minute-Miler ran a 4:33, which is why we didn't see her at all!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!! So exciting!