NYC marathon race report
“Run the first 20 miles with your legs, and the last 6.2 with your heart” - This was a sign that I saw on the NYC marathon course that really helped me out along the way. To say the race was easy would be a bold faced lie. Coming off of surgery to install a plate and some screws in my left clavicle in the beginning of August, and trying to race a marathon in very early November would pose a challenge. But a test I was up for.
I got cleared to run 8 weeks before the November 1st race date and started easy. I knew I could only log so many miles without getting hurt or injuring myself by ramping up too quickly. Once race day came, I had two solid 18 milers under my belt and a few 40+ mile training weeks. Nothing too much, no speed, no base, just whatever I had NOT lost from mending my broken bones and road rash on the couch for the last 2 months.
Race morning was a blur. I woke up like a shot and was ready to roll. I was secretly pretty nervous as I really didn’t know how my body would react to the lack of training I had subjected it to. I knew I could get to 18 miles, but after that, I was on thin ice.
After a few mix-ups and realizing I was waiting on the wrong platform, I successfully navigated the NYC subway system and made it to the Staten Island Ferry. On the subway, I was boarding my train along with everyone else still in their Halloween costumes coming home from whatever parties they were at the night before. It was crazy times. I was scheduled for a 5:30am ferry, but I made it to the terminal at 5:40am and had to sit around to take the 6am one. Onboard I saw the sun rise and statue of liberty shine bright as the sun was coming up behind it. It was really a cool start of the day.
I entered athlete’s village and sat around for what seemed like forever. It was 7am when I finally had gotten my coffee, a bagel and a Gatorade and I decided it would be good to have breakfast (partly to keep warm and partly for something to do) NYC hosts a generally international field and someone said it was easier to get in the lottery internationally than it was for a US citizen. I was in the middle of a group of people, when I finally found a place to sit and eat breakfast that no one within a 25 foot radius of me, spoke English. It was amazing and just really cool that everyone was partaking in a common goal…get to that finish line.
Our corrals were loaded and ready to go by 9:15am and the first wave went off at 9:40am. We all watched as the elites in the box in front of us got introduced and I nervously made some jokes and the usual. The gun went off and from the start it was just wild. Not as many people on the course as I expected (I guess I just really expected it to be wall-to-wall runners) but just spectators everywhere. The first bridge you go over is the biggest hill in the entire course and it has a pretty good view from it. We all scrambled up and I think I hit the first mile marker in 6:53 or so. I was feeling okay.
About 2-3 miles in, I saw a guy in an Ironman Louisville jersey that I ran up to and started chatting with. Turns out he was from Buffalo and we know a lot of the same people. He even dropped the name Joe Meyers and I told him that guy sucks (haha, just kidding Joe!) We ran for a ways together and were having a good time just chatting about how ridiculous of a spectacle this race is.
I was feeling okay and passed thru about the mile 6 or 7 mark and spotted a few people I knew on the left hand side of the course. Erin Mullaney jumped off the sidelines and ran alongside me for about 100m and snapped a photo as depicted below. It made me laugh and I thanked her for the support. Another mile or so up the road, I spotted Kim, Jessica and little baby Ozzie in the crowds and they cheered loudly as I passed on thru. I forgot to hand off my highlighter yellow gloves to them, so I tucked them into the waist band of my shorts and soldiered on.
Hitting the half marathon mark in 1:26:58, I knew I was in for a good race if I could just hang on to the pace that I was currently running. I knew that even slowing my pace a little I would still be in good shape to crack the 3:10 goal that I had set and maybe even faster. I was starting to feel a little sluggish and had to remember to focus on the task at hand instead of being distracted by waving at spectators and seeing the sights of the City. 
At mile 16 or 17, you pass over a large 1.5 mile bridge and you go from throngs of screaming spectators, bands, and all the liveliness of New York City, to pure silence. The only thing you hear is the person next to you breathing. It’s eerily calming and a needed change of pace. You can hear the crowd on the other side of the bridge far before you see them and you come off in the Bronx somewhere. After a short stint there, you finally cross into Manhattan and make your way to Central Park.
I strolled thru my safe zone of 30k in a little over 2:05 and it was virgin territory after this mark. I’ve always said that, “weird things happen after 20 miles in a marathon” and without the proper training for this race, I knew it was probably going to be true. I stopped for a quick #1 relief at a porta potty around this time and was back to the race in a flash. I’ve never done that in a marathon before. Miles 20-24 were quite uneventful, but I thought that we entered into Central Park at like mile 20, so I was a little delirious and confused why we weren’t in the park. I slammed the third gel that I had at mile 23 and we entered Central Park around mile 24.
This is where things got interesting. I was REALLY starting to fall apart and finally made my way to the 40K checkpoint (approx. 24.8miles) and split thru in 2:49:30 and did some quick math in my head that I needed to run the last 1.4 miles in less than 10 minutes if I wanted to break 3 hours. I honestly did not know if I could do that at this point in the race. My left abdominals were cramping real bad and I was shuffling towards the finish line. I saw the clock counting down in front of me and was passing the “800m to go” banners and just needed to grit and get this race done.
I clomped thru through the line in a gun time of 2:59:58 and a chip time of 2:59:35. As I crossed, I tried to pull out the neck of my shirt to expose the scar from the clavicle surgery that was at the beginning of August. I was overcome with thoughts of, “F@%K surgery, I’m back!!!” and might have squirted out a tiny tear as I crossed. It was pretty emotional to get to that line and I put myself thru hell to do it. I was mangled. EVERY single Red Cross volunteer that saw me, came up to me and asked me if I was okay because I was loopy and looked like shit as I grabbed my medal and space blanket. 
I was pretty dazed and they hand you a feed bag and you have to walk like 2 miles until you get to your UPS truck with your number on it and all of your dry gear. I finally made it and despite the bitching and complaining about having to walk so long, it was good for my legs and I really didn’t feel too bad in the days after I returned home. Celebratory NYC style thin crust pizza was consumed and I was a happy camper. I had completed a goal that I didn’t really think was possible and ripped off another sub 3 marathon (third one out of four stand alone marathons)
So that’s it, I’m back to swimming, biking and running (obviously) again and eager to get back the fitness that was lost over the last few months. I have full range of motion with my shoulder and only slight pain whenever I wrench it or move it wrong. Turns out the only thing I lost with the IMLP accident was time. Make the best of it friends. Talk to you all again soon, cheers!
I got cleared to run 8 weeks before the November 1st race date and started easy. I knew I could only log so many miles without getting hurt or injuring myself by ramping up too quickly. Once race day came, I had two solid 18 milers under my belt and a few 40+ mile training weeks. Nothing too much, no speed, no base, just whatever I had NOT lost from mending my broken bones and road rash on the couch for the last 2 months.
Race morning was a blur. I woke up like a shot and was ready to roll. I was secretly pretty nervous as I really didn’t know how my body would react to the lack of training I had subjected it to. I knew I could get to 18 miles, but after that, I was on thin ice.
After a few mix-ups and realizing I was waiting on the wrong platform, I successfully navigated the NYC subway system and made it to the Staten Island Ferry. On the subway, I was boarding my train along with everyone else still in their Halloween costumes coming home from whatever parties they were at the night before. It was crazy times. I was scheduled for a 5:30am ferry, but I made it to the terminal at 5:40am and had to sit around to take the 6am one. Onboard I saw the sun rise and statue of liberty shine bright as the sun was coming up behind it. It was really a cool start of the day.
I entered athlete’s village and sat around for what seemed like forever. It was 7am when I finally had gotten my coffee, a bagel and a Gatorade and I decided it would be good to have breakfast (partly to keep warm and partly for something to do) NYC hosts a generally international field and someone said it was easier to get in the lottery internationally than it was for a US citizen. I was in the middle of a group of people, when I finally found a place to sit and eat breakfast that no one within a 25 foot radius of me, spoke English. It was amazing and just really cool that everyone was partaking in a common goal…get to that finish line.
Our corrals were loaded and ready to go by 9:15am and the first wave went off at 9:40am. We all watched as the elites in the box in front of us got introduced and I nervously made some jokes and the usual. The gun went off and from the start it was just wild. Not as many people on the course as I expected (I guess I just really expected it to be wall-to-wall runners) but just spectators everywhere. The first bridge you go over is the biggest hill in the entire course and it has a pretty good view from it. We all scrambled up and I think I hit the first mile marker in 6:53 or so. I was feeling okay.About 2-3 miles in, I saw a guy in an Ironman Louisville jersey that I ran up to and started chatting with. Turns out he was from Buffalo and we know a lot of the same people. He even dropped the name Joe Meyers and I told him that guy sucks (haha, just kidding Joe!) We ran for a ways together and were having a good time just chatting about how ridiculous of a spectacle this race is.
I was feeling okay and passed thru about the mile 6 or 7 mark and spotted a few people I knew on the left hand side of the course. Erin Mullaney jumped off the sidelines and ran alongside me for about 100m and snapped a photo as depicted below. It made me laugh and I thanked her for the support. Another mile or so up the road, I spotted Kim, Jessica and little baby Ozzie in the crowds and they cheered loudly as I passed on thru. I forgot to hand off my highlighter yellow gloves to them, so I tucked them into the waist band of my shorts and soldiered on.
Hitting the half marathon mark in 1:26:58, I knew I was in for a good race if I could just hang on to the pace that I was currently running. I knew that even slowing my pace a little I would still be in good shape to crack the 3:10 goal that I had set and maybe even faster. I was starting to feel a little sluggish and had to remember to focus on the task at hand instead of being distracted by waving at spectators and seeing the sights of the City. At mile 16 or 17, you pass over a large 1.5 mile bridge and you go from throngs of screaming spectators, bands, and all the liveliness of New York City, to pure silence. The only thing you hear is the person next to you breathing. It’s eerily calming and a needed change of pace. You can hear the crowd on the other side of the bridge far before you see them and you come off in the Bronx somewhere. After a short stint there, you finally cross into Manhattan and make your way to Central Park.I strolled thru my safe zone of 30k in a little over 2:05 and it was virgin territory after this mark. I’ve always said that, “weird things happen after 20 miles in a marathon” and without the proper training for this race, I knew it was probably going to be true. I stopped for a quick #1 relief at a porta potty around this time and was back to the race in a flash. I’ve never done that in a marathon before. Miles 20-24 were quite uneventful, but I thought that we entered into Central Park at like mile 20, so I was a little delirious and confused why we weren’t in the park. I slammed the third gel that I had at mile 23 and we entered Central Park around mile 24.This is where things got interesting. I was REALLY starting to fall apart and finally made my way to the 40K checkpoint (approx. 24.8miles) and split thru in 2:49:30 and did some quick math in my head that I needed to run the last 1.4 miles in less than 10 minutes if I wanted to break 3 hours. I honestly did not know if I could do that at this point in the race. My left abdominals were cramping real bad and I was shuffling towards the finish line. I saw the clock counting down in front of me and was passing the “800m to go” banners and just needed to grit and get this race done.I clomped thru through the line in a gun time of 2:59:58 and a chip time of 2:59:35. As I crossed, I tried to pull out the neck of my shirt to expose the scar from the clavicle surgery that was at the beginning of August. I was overcome with thoughts of, “F@%K surgery, I’m back!!!” and might have squirted out a tiny tear as I crossed. It was pretty emotional to get to that line and I put myself thru hell to do it. I was mangled. EVERY single Red Cross volunteer that saw me, came up to me and asked me if I was okay because I was loopy and looked like shit as I grabbed my medal and space blanket. I was pretty dazed and they hand you a feed bag and you have to walk like 2 miles until you get to your UPS truck with your number on it and all of your dry gear. I finally made it and despite the bitching and complaining about having to walk so long, it was good for my legs and I really didn’t feel too bad in the days after I returned home. Celebratory NYC style thin crust pizza was consumed and I was a happy camper. I had completed a goal that I didn’t really think was possible and ripped off another sub 3 marathon (third one out of four stand alone marathons)So that’s it, I’m back to swimming, biking and running (obviously) again and eager to get back the fitness that was lost over the last few months. I have full range of motion with my shoulder and only slight pain whenever I wrench it or move it wrong. Turns out the only thing I lost with the IMLP accident was time. Make the best of it friends. Talk to you all again soon, cheers!
posted by Travis at 5:47 PM
1 comments
It’s been about a month now since the race and I’ve kind of let things slide recently and not kept on top of the blog. Most likely it has something to do with not having internet at home and also Blogger.com being blocked at work. No worries though, I finally have found some time to get my thoughts down on paper.
My father came up to Placid with me again this time around and he has been a staple in my Ironman experiences. I truly enjoy the camaraderie and support he gives and I look forward to spending quality time with him on the ride there (we always have driven) and for the entire weekend. We made our way up on Friday morning and it came up on the trip to the ADK’s we were jokingly referring to our accommodations at the “Ritz”. Due to my lack of securing a reservation somewhere, we stayed again at the North Country Community College dorms. Hey, so sue me, it was a bed to sleep in and that’s all I was really concerned with.
I entered the water and we both split our ways. I headed over to the dock in Mirror Lake and trying to get a spot as close to the cable as possible. I had started in the same place in 2007 and even though it was physical there, this was the place to start. I held on for several minutes and made some fun jokes like I always do. “I found a warm spot!” is one of my favorites and gets everyone laughing. A guy that was at the NCCC dorms that I had met the day before was hanging on to the dock right next to me (I’m sorry I forgot your name…) and he had been to Kona before so I thought I was in the right place.
I was taking salt and accidentally ripped off my race number from my belt and while riding, I reattached it via safety pin. I was proud of myself. Jason Frank passed me about a mile later and he was a guy that was 3 minutes ahead of me in 2007 and I knew who he was. I introduced myself as the guy who was next to him on the podium that year and he said he remembered me. I don’t know if he did or not, but it was cool.
I arrived in Elizabethtown Community Hospital and they x-rayed me, said I had a broken collarbone and then gave me a phone to call someone to come get me. My emergency contact for the race was my dad and I had put my own cell number down and given the phone to him race morning. I called and called and there was no answer. I left what would be some pretty ridiculous messages “I don’t know where I am, but I had a bike crash and I’m okay, just a broken collarbone. Can you come get me please?” but my dad never got them because my phone was on vibrate and he never felt it ring… My sister luckily got a message (I remembered her number by heart luckily) and they came to pick me up.
My sister drove me home the next day and my father followed. Every bump in the road was painful as the sling didn’t really restrict too much. We stopped at a McDonalds in Watertown, NY for lunch and I looked pretty bad. While waiting in line, this guy behind us was looking at me really funny, so my sister told him that I cut myself shaving. It was great. Even in my drugged up and painful state, I still explained that I was in a bike accident and was going like 50+mph downhill. He asked if it was a motorcycle accident, I repeated bicycle and I still think he thought I was joking. Oh well. 
It’s now a month after the accident and all of the road rash has healed (mostly). I have been restricted from anything really with my left arm for about the next 8 weeks although I have been cleared to run as of about a week ago. It’s just weird to go from exercise every day to couch potato in a flash. The realization that I have is that I am truly lucky to be alive. The hill that I crashed on had oncoming traffic to my left and a river to my right (I would’ve had to have slid thru a cable and steel guardrail…but since I was unconscious, that might have gotten nasty) I’m truly lucky to be alive. My gear and equipment is all really jacked up, but that can be replaced. The funny thing was that the race wheels I was borrowing, only had a scuff on one of the decals and that was it! I was REALLY happy to not have to replace those for John. 
But this was a learning experience and I’m just happy to still be breathing at this point. There is a nasty thread 
I spent a few weeks living at my parents house immediately following my surgery and they took care of me which I am ever grateful of. I’m back to my own apartment as of about 2 weeks ago and have returned to work full time too around then. Things are back to normal it seems for an ordinary human being (I can do all the normal daily activities of life) but not to normal for me yet. It’s going to be a long hard road to recovery, but I’ll be back soon enough, don’t you worry. The good thing is, I WILL be back. Honestly, if this broken collarbone and some road raash is all I have to deal with, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad. It could've been MUCH worse, I know.
We went out at a moderate pace and by the time we hit the single track, Jeff, Neal, Jim Mollosky and I were pretty much separated from the rest of the race. We gapped it pretty quickly. Jeff and I were catching up over the first few miles and he said things were going well with coaching in Fredonia and was inquiring about Ironman Lake Placid to see if he was going to be up in the ADK’s the same time as he was scouting for JOTC. Turns out he’s gonna be, so I hope he pops by to check out the chaos of IM.
I was running scared on the 3rd loop. As I said before we were all racing for 3rd place and I was in it right at this moment. It was my race to lose at this point. I knew that for the 3rd loop Mort was going to take us up the side of Cardiac Hill again like in 2007, so I was saving a little extra mojo for that in the tank. I kept on trying not to look over my shoulder too much to gauge where Jim was, but I could feel that I really couldn’t shake him. I was throwing everything that I could at him and trying to accelerate around turns so that I was out of sight and out of mind.
The post race BBQ and festivities are always a blast there and the sun came out and we all got into dry clothes and relaxed over food while soaking up the vitamin D. I met some cool new folks, hung out with some old friends, had some fantastic food and stayed there laughing and joking pretty much until about 1-2pm from an 8am start of the race. All in all a great day. I ended up winning a pair of Darn Tough socks and a gift certificate for 3rd place overall which was nice. Medved always puts on great races and I know they’re all trail geeks at heart who love to just get out there and play like I do.