Marathon 13 was the 34th New York City Marathon, the five borough tour from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Central Park. Events around the marathon were more interesting than the race itself. We took the night train from Fayetteville to Penn Station on Friday night. We walked from Penn Station to the Doubletree in Times Square, which kindly let us check in at 10:30 in the morning.

I went to the convention center while the family went shopping. which was a smart move on their part since the line at the convention center to get a race number was 45 minutes long. After a nice lunch at an Irish pub, we shopped away the afternoon on Fifth Avenue and Rockfeller Plaza. After recouping in the room a bit, we went to see The Producers Saturday evening. It is very funny, but not as effective as the movie in explaining why Spring Time for Hilter is a hit.

Sunday morning I caught an early bus, arriving at the Marathon start about 6 am. I had a lot of time to watch the ebb and flow of restroom lines, the development informal male facilities and the infinity of the line of busses streaming across the bridge. The marathon starts in three groups, I was in the green group, which runs on the lower deck of the bridge. I ran mostly on the outside edge of the bridge to watch the fire boats shooting red, white and blue water underneath. Seeing a rainbow in the colored water was particularly cool. There was a story in Saturday's Times complaining about causual marathoners and mentioning that people would stop to take pictures and talk on cell phones on the bridge. I observed both effects and offered to snap a picture for one fellow that was shooting away next to me.

The green group runs next to blue and red along 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, coming in to merge with the groups one sees the other groups in profile, they seem to be moving incredibly fast, but we seem to keep up once we merge. The Green group is bit ahead in distance until the final merger at mile 8.

I don't have much to report run wise about this trip, I thought that I might take a slow tour of New York but ended up feeling comfortable at a steady pace. The best single moment of the race is coming off the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan at mile 16, with the crowd screaming around the ramp. The difference between a good marathon and a bad is how one feels at 16 miles, I felt fine. I was happy to reach the end, but I had no real discomfort until about 24 miles.

Here is my box score

I took second among 15 Brady's running the race. I would have taken first if Theresa hadn't come over from the old country to beat me by 3 minutes. I was 45th among 600 people named David. I was 16th among the 314 finishers from North Carolina, if I were to return to my home state (Montana) I would have beaten all of the other finishers.

This was my second fastest Marathon, 8 minutes off my PR. It was hot day (60-65), however and I feel good about the race. I ran hard the entire route and was finishing near 8 minute miles. It was good steady run with a big group of friends.

The crowds around Central Park and Times Square were enormous all weekend. It took two hours to walk back to the hotel. We read for a while in the room. We took a cab to Penn Station and a night train back to North Carolina. Dinner in the Diner, nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina.