Four-to-six of us Reston Runners had a lot of fun in New York City this last weekend participating in the New York City Marathon, which had 31,185 finishers--twice as big as the Marine Corps Marathon. This was a difficult course, as advertised, with the bridge approaches. The course started off on Staten Island, uphill on the access ramp to the Verrazano bridge (2 miles long), then ran through Brooklyn and Queens to the Queensboro Bridge, which was an even steeper up hill access at mile 15; but both bridges had spectacular views of the New York harbor, skyline, and rivers.
Even running through the "economically disadvantaged' neighborhoods, as back of the pack runners, we continued to have strong and enthusiastic support from the local neighborhoods and their ethnic bands and flags of countries from all over the world that people had come from to be a part of the American Dream. Overall it has been estimated that 2.5 million spectators turn out to watch the Marathon!! When we came into Manhattan, the crowds were packed solid (Street to Building on the Sidewalks) on both sides of First Avenue, as we ran North for 4 more miles into the Bronx. Then, after a mile through the Bronx, we headed South again, crossing over our 5th bridge back into Upper Manhattan Island and Harlem. We then ran South for about 4 miles, including going into Central Park for a series of long gradual hills. We then turned to the West on 57th Street, along the South Side of Central Park to Columbus Circle, before making a sharp North turn back into Central Park for the last half-mile of the race to the finish line. Thus, the race covered all five boroughs of New York City.
The international flavor of the participants was also very evident, much more so than I seem to recall from Chicago, my other big city marathon. There were over 500 participants from Japan and Mexico, 2,000 from France and a 1,000 each from Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as participants in varying numbers from literally all over the world. The Kenyan's took first place in both the Men's and Women's Divisions, with the winners getting over $100,000 each in prize money; they also got $25-50K each in bonus and appearance monies. Thus, if you are a serious Marathoner, this is a must do race in which you need to participate. Other than running my first Marathon, the scenery of Big Sur and the Avenue of the Giants, as urban races go, this is tops!
Our Reston Runners' contingent consisted of four runners with whom we got together in New York for Japanese Dinner, a play (Cabaret), and to cheer each other onward. There were also a few guys, whose names I've forgotten (Sorry), who told me they were running in New York. Those of us who ran would especially like to thank Mike and Chuck Havill and their NY Brooklyn friend Cindy for cheering us on at Mile 11 and for our Son and his wife, John and Jackie Hetterly, for coming up to New York, on less than a week's notice, and cheering for us at mile 16 and 26. An unexpected pleasure was having Joe Cunningham spot Hiroko and yell out encouragement for both of us at about mile 17 or 18. He had a sharp eye and a loud voice. David Havill ran our fastest time with 3:47:54 hours. David is the son of our Chuck and Mike Havill who were also 3-time and 2-time fast New York Marathoners in their own right. As a proud Father, sounding a note of encouraging for the future, Chuck was quoted as saying, "Okay, for a 1st time Marathon, with only a little training."
Hiroko and I placed next with a time of 5:46:06 hours. This time was 10 minutes faster for her than her last Marathon of 18 months ago, and not bad for a time, coming back from double bunion surgery on her feet. We finished before dark, which with the race not starting until 11:10 AM, was one of our primary goals. My objective was to help "coach" Hiroko through the race. She ran much stronger than in previous races and had a strong, last two-mile, finish. I had placed our names on our running shirts and it was really a psychological boost to hear many-many people calling out :"Go Loki" and "Go Norm." I would encourage everyone who runs a long race to put their name on their shirts for this continuous encouragement. How can you let up in a race when everyone is calling out encouragement to you? See follow-on comments below.
It really felt almost like a 50 mile JFK Ultra-Marathon Day. We got up at 4:30 AM and got on the buses at the downtown NY Public Library at 5:40 AM to go to Staten Island. We arrived at Staten Island at 6:00 AM and then had to wait 5 hours to start at 11:10 AM. We could have ran a Marathon during the wait time!
Anyway, Hiroko got to meet several Japanese men before the race; there were over 500 men and women from Japan running in the Marathon. She really felt like she was running in the Olympics, especially with the crowds cheering along all the streets and because she ran with a younger man from Japan for the first 10-12 miles of the race, ultimately beating him by 10 minutes. She ended up placing 21st out of her age group of 49 runners, which had 27 women from the USA, 6 from Japan, 4 each from Germany and Great Britain, 2 from the Netherlands, and one each from Russia, New Zealand, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, and Spain. This is an indication of the international flavor of the New York Marathon. Claire Tse rounded out our little team of "known" Reston Runners. Claire finished within 6 hours; thus, she achieved her goal of maintaining her VA Beach Half-Marathon pace for the full 26.2 miles. She pace a lot of people from all over the world and helped several first time runners along with words of encouragement, as well as helping a wheel chair "rider" up a few hills.
Anyway, Hiroko, Claire, and I are now, as soon as we recover, beginning our training for the June 2, 2003 San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon -- we are already signed up for this event. As a further indication of how upbeat Hiroko was feeling after the race, she started discussing times, how she placed, and discussing maybe doing another Marathon; she usually does not like to talk about the next race. In fact she is starting to get carried away a little bit, when she remember the Lake Tahoe Marathon and Ultra-Marathon and said, "Hey, maybe, this might be something to do next year, since the scenery is so spectacular." I would like all who might be interested in thinking about this to go to their web site at: http://www.laketahoemarathon.com/indexframes.html On October 9, 10, and 11, 2003 (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) they are have a series of 26.2 mile Marathon Runs, each day, for a total of 78.6 miles. Thus, you run around the circumference road of Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada at an altitude of about 8,000 feet, I think, but I am not sure. Each day for three days you run 26.2 Miles. The official Lake Tahoe Marathon is on Saturday the 11 of October. There are special awards for doing this triple Marathon; look at their web site--this is really an exclusive group!!! So for all you JKF50 and 100 mile runners, this is something to think about and for everyone else it is also something to consider. Remember the Avon 60-mile walk! This is an event for walkers that covers a distance of 20 miles each day for 3 days. So, walking or run/walking the Lake Tahoe event is an option to get through this endeavor for everyone who trains for it. If anyone is interested let me know and we can talk further and maybe get a group of us together to do this.
Norman and Hiroko Hunt, at hunt@software.org.
As a tag line to the above story, Jim Nagle reported the following: Stuart Schept did NY with a time of 3:18.