New York City Marathon
by Julia “Comet” Weatherby

My great training partner, who I shall call "J-Fo", and I have trained for and raced many Austin races together. With quite a bit of lottery luck, we were both accepted into the New York City Marathon. J-Fo is from New York, but I had never been to the state. Since it was a great destination and the training would be over the summer, I decided to do minimal training and race it "just for fun".

The race expo was impressive. I found a huge selection of NYC Marathon logo clothing, and nearly every athletic running brand had a booth. I had the chance to schmooze with some Mizuno reps as well as have Grete Waitz autograph a poster for me. Another nice freebie was having an imprint of one's feet set in plaster and framed. The title sponsor, ING took a free digital photo, handed out orange M&M's and postcards that featured four female pros. I loved ING's seven minute preview video of the race. My advice to future NYC marathoners is to arrive early if you go on Saturday to avoid waiting in an around-the-block line to enter the expo, and don't depend on the expo shuttle buses.

On race morning, I quickly found myself on the shuttle bus to Staten Island, sitting next to J-Fo. As I looked at the hazy Manhatten skyline from the bridge, it amazed me just how far I was going to run. Not only that distance, but past Manhatten and into the Bronx! We spent a couple hours waiting in the starting area. J-Fo and I ran into Texans everywhere. We saw P. Diddy high-fiving other runners and a UPS girl squealed when she saw P. Diddy. The UPS bag handling, portapotties and pre-race food was excellent. J-Fo and I bodymarked each other with our nicknames, "AUSTIN", stars and smiley faces. Our bodymarking services were in great demand as we stood in line for the start.

J-Fo and I started the race on the lower deck of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, about 15 minutes after the gun. There was plenty of room to run and we seemed to be seeded well. The rumors about it "raining" onto the lower deck were not found to be true. After the first two miles, we were thrilled to see our first spectators, lots of children with "Don't Stop Diddy!" signs. We ran near the spectators for most of the race. I spent the first 8 miles high-fiving a lot of people and cute kids. Surrounding us was an incredible variety of people, music and neighborhoods. I got many supportive text messages on my cellphone from friends across the country, and even took a few calls. My boyfriend, Jay, would text message me his exact location at different points of the course, so that I wouldn't miss him. He also updated my online journal with live reports of our racing! J-Fo definitely got the most cheers. She had "J-Fo" written just below her neck on her chest, so it was easy to read. I had "Comet" written down the side of my arm which wasn't as visible. Her top was also made of small Texas flags, so people recognized her with countless cheers of “Go Texas!”

I realized the race wouldn't have the most ideal ending when my legs were feeling dead by mile 8. I still had a long way to go! To conserve energy, I ended the high-fives and just focused on running. I saw Jay all over the city and a coworker from NYC along First Avenue. We knew when and where to look for each other thanks to our phones. My coworker even had signs up for me! First Avenue was the craziest and loudest. So many people!!! The rest of the race was fairly tough. The water stops felt random and it was hard to pay attention to when I should take another shot of gel. When things tightened up again going into the Bronx, it was hard to keep moving when I'd run up against a group of walkers four or five across. I didn't have the energy to run around them, and didn't feel like pushing my way through them. This happened over the last five miles of the marathon. When we hit Harlem in the late stages of the race, the famous J-Fo and I started walking for a little while. She reminded me that time didn't matter and it was just for fun, so it was fine to walk for awhile. I started feeling better and realized again that my big goal for the race was to have fun. So I started high-fiving people alongside the course again. Soon after I started, I saw a man with a huge afro and a microphone in his hand and began to high-five him as well. He asked if we had time for an interview.

"Of course we do!"

J-Fo and I were asked by the local hip-hop radio station reporter what we thought of the fact that P Diddy had already beat us on two months of training when we'd probably been training all year for this. He also asked what we thought of his cause.I told him it didn't bother me that he was ahead of us and that it was awesome how he was raising so much money ($2 million!) for such a good cause.

After posing for photos and signing posters for our adoring NYC fans (or maybe I was just delirious at that point), we continued on with our mission. Finish NYCM 2003! The end passed by quickly and yet ever so slowly. I couldn't believe how slow I was going even though I was running. I was definitely doing the marathoner death shuffle. I don't remember the last gel shot or Gatorade drink I took in the last 4 or 5 miles because I just stopped caring about it. I only wanted to finish. Fortunately things picked up in the last mile (for everyone else anyway...) No more walkers to fight through, but so many people cruising right past me. The end was super-painful. Not physically but mentally. J-Fo pointed out "the finish line!!" which dishearteningly turned out to be a whole banner stretched across the course to point out it was only mile 26. There were signs nearly every 100 meters telling us how much farther we still had to go. I'd rather not know! Finally, finally... we crossed the finish line together and proudly took our medals. It wasn't my worst marathon time, but it was almost an hour off my best at Motorola in February. However, this race certainly was fun and injury free, so I met my main two goals!

I also learned a great lesson. When racing a marathon “just for fun”, it may be especially difficult to find the fun when you aren’t fully trained.

Julia Weatherby is a marathoner and triathlete. When not racing, she searches for new places to run around the country as an IBM technical consultant.
http://julia.weatherby.info/comet



This originally appeared in Running Austin, the bi-monthly publication of the Austin Runners Club.