Category Archives: 2016 NYC Marathon

NYC Marathon Weekend

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img_6183It’s 51 weeks until next year’s NYC Marathon! With my cancelled entry for this year, hopefully I will be toeing the start line on November 5, 2017.

img_6179It was weird to not be carb loading on Saturday night at the team pasta dinner. Instead we went out to an early birthday dinner at Halifax and ate a lot of seafood (a must try if you’re in Hoboken). Even though I was not running the race, we still participated in the festivities. For the last 8 years, there was only one year that I was not out spectating or running the race and it was because of a wedding. This year I ran the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K and on marathon Sunday, Josh, Charlotte and I went out to cheer on all the runners. Before we went out to the city, it was fun to watch the pre-race coverage and the elites finish their face. It was awesome to watch Molly Huddle finish in 3rd place in her marathon debut!

img_6195Josh and Charlotte spectated for a bit right before mile 26 on Central Park South and I went up to 130th and 5th Avenue, around mile 21.5, to meet up with a friend and run the last 4 or so miles with one of my cousins. Before he arrived, I was able to cheer on a couple of friends and another cousin (I have a big family and many runners in it!). The weather was gorgeous albeit maybe a bit too sunny for the runners but great weather for the spectators.

I had coached my cousin on his first marathon and was glad that I was able to help pace him for some of the hardest miles of the race — 5th Avenue hill and the last couple of miles through Central Park. It was extremely exciting to hear the roar of the crowds and amazing support for all the runners.

The NYC Marathon is an experience for runners and spectators and not to be missed if you are local or coming into the area on the first Sunday of November! Congratulations to all the runners again on an amazing accomplishment!

I will not be running the NYC Marathon this year…

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img_6164I will not be running the NYC Marathon on Sunday, November 6th. When I signed up back in the beginning of the year and even after Charlotte was born, I had grand plans to find a way to make it to the start line. The NYC Marathon will always be a special race for me starting with the failed attempt in 2012 due to Hurricane Sandy followed by 2013, 2014, and 2015 when I ran it 3 weeks pregnant.

However as I started to settle more into the motherhood routine – you know the lack of sleep, constant schedule of pumping breast milk, and very little running or physical activity, it became more and more apparent that attempting to run this race may not be a good idea. I am still convinced that I probably physically could have completed the race with some kind of run/walk strategy especially after having a somewhat successful Bronx 10-Mile race experience but the thought of sitting in Staten Island for hours and then the hours it would take before I could make it home seemed too daunting.

From the time I leave the house until the time I make it back home later that day would easily be 14 hours or more especially since I was in no way going to finish around my previous times. I know that I could have found a way to pump before the start but once I started, there will not be much of an opportunity. Yes, there has been a lot of press around the woman who used a handheld pump during a half marathon and kudos to her for doing that but for me, it just didn’t seem practical.

So unfortunately, this year I will be deferring my NYC Marathon entry and proudly cheering all the runners from the sidelines. Since I will not be crossing the finish line on Sunday, I will be running the Dash to the Finish on Saturday morning so I can say that I did cross the NYC Marathon finish line every year since 2013, just not actually run the full 26.2 distance. I will be sharing recaps of the Dash and spectating the NYC Marathon next week.

Good luck to all the runners this weekend!