Runner Barry Magee's phrase was certainly true of the New York marathon.
Cynthia and I had a wonderful time in New York preparing for the marathon on Sunday November 4. The United Nations Day warm up run on Saturday November 3 was awesome, with the number of different nationalities represented. Then it was off on an open-topped bus for sight-seeing round New York (despite the freezing wind.) However, the spicy lunch in China Town was a definite mistake for me (as I found to my cost during the marathon, the next day). In the evening, we partied at the pasta party and then watched a really magnificent show of fireworks. After which, it was back to the hotel for an early night.
The logistics of bussing nearly 40,000 runners out to the start on Staten Island on the Sunday morning were truly impressive. It all went so smoothly. Once there, we queued up for coffee and bagels and other goodies, plastic bags and suits covering our running clothes.
Finally, it was the slow walk to the start line, through mounds of warm clothes discarded by runners as they started to run. These clothes were picked up for distribution to charities. Then we were off, with our 5h30 pace group. The run over Staten Island bridge was beautiful in the morning sun, with Manhattan in the distance. And the crowds were absolutely marvelous. We had to laugh at some nuns and priests toasting us with their teacups as we went past a church. It's a sight-seeing tour in its own right - covering the 5 boroughs - Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan.
All was going well, until I was struck with a griping stomach. At that point, we lost the pace group. However, I said we should try to catch up, which we did, but was a big mistake as we exhausted ourselves in the process.
So miles 20 to 26 were quite a torture, especially as that was the hilly part. The real killer was the slope UP to the finish line. But, as we've proved in the past, we CAN do it. So we've got another medal for our collection and some really good memories. The day following the marathon, we wore our medals proudly around the town. So many people came up and congratulated us. It was really heartwarming.
From January, we started serious training for the LONDON MARATHON on April 13, 2008.
We did the Marrakech half-marathon on Sunday January 27. It was getting fairly warm by the time we finished (in about 2 hours 25 minutes), so we were glad not to be doing the full marathon!
During February we shall be concentrating on gradually building up time for our long runs, aiming at doing 4 to 41/2 hours by the end of the month.
We have been out running with our running club, Club Marocain des Coureurs de Fond (CMCF) twice a week at from 5.45 to 7 or 7.15, every Tuesday and Thursday MORNING. One time we do hill runs and the other speed(relatively speaking) training. We do our long runs together on Saturdays or Sundays. On Sunday February 3, we did 3 hours and felt in good shape afterwards.
We also do water jogging - an absolute killer - for about half an hour on Wednesday mornings. We have started doing Qi Gong twice a week to keep us calm, focused and supple. Cynthia is also doing weight training to build core strength.
To be continued...........
The "Course Féminine de Casablanca" (women's race) will be held on May 18 this year. It has received the International Association of Athletics Federations (www.iaaf.org) silver label. The IAAF has issued Labels to a number of leading Road Races around the world for 2008.
The Labels are attributed to races that satisfy a number of important criteria concerning the organizational standard of the race, course measurement, safety and medical standards and media services. The deciding factors for the attribution of a Gold or Silver Label are the number of elite athletes engaged and the level of international TV coverage achieved by the participating races.
We're hoping that a good contingent from AIWCC will show up for this 10km race. .