Karen, Susie and Vincent in the Start Village
The weather could not have been more perfect yesterday morning – not too cold, a light wind, clear blue skies and bright sunshine… so lucky to have missed the snow storm that struck the city the weekend before. Arrived at the Start Village in good time via the Staten Island Ferry, and out of a crowd of over 47,000 managed to bump in to two of my team mates from REACH Grenada, Karen Lawson and Vincent Aloi!
I was in the third and last Wave of the race with a start time of 10.40. Nothing had prepared me for the sheer emotion of being on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with thousands of other runners, listening to NYC Firefighter Regina Wilson’s rendition of ‘God Bless America’, followed by the sound of the start gun and Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’ blaring out of the sound system. I took in the view of Manhattan from the bridge and then settled in to a nice easy pace. I really used the Alexander Technique to think about my running form, keeping everything light and easy and not worrying too much about what might be lying in store for me up ahead.
My strategy for the race was to walk the fluid stations and I heeded the advice of Malcolm Balk to drink at every one of them. So I alternated between half a cup of water and gatorade. I really used the Technique to pace myself, to run my own race and not worry about what other runners were doing. Unless you are an elite runner like the Kenyan athlete Geoffrey Mutai looking to break a record (which he did – in a staggering 2:05:06 to beat the course record by more than two and a half minutes) then it is worth treating the New York Marathon as a great opportunity to see parts of the city you otherwise never would. It is essentially a tour of the five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan…
The crowds are phenomenal – an estimated 2 million people came out to cheer us on (including Michael J Fox in Central Park apparently…) I wore a label with SUZIE in big bold letters. When things got tough there always seemed to be someone in the crowd who would call out my name and offer encouragement such as ‘you can do it Susie!’. It felt good to have enough breath to thank them for their support, do the odd high five and call back “I’m digging deep, I promise!”. There was music all along the way: punk rock bands in Queens, rap artists in the Bronx, gospel singers outside churches in Harlem, firefighters out with their trucks… It is a truly amazing experience. One thing about running using the principles of the Alexander Technique is that by expanding your awareness you can take in what is going on around you, which I think makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable. I ran one mile at a time, and after the long and tough Queensborough bridge at mile 16 I spotted Toby waving from the crowd. That was just the boost I needed for the long stretch of three miles along First Avenue to the Bronx - thousands of people ahead of me as far as the eye could see.
My other strategy was to carry five jelly babies – one for every five miles. And wow did it feel great when I was down to my last one…
Coming in to Central Park I still felt pretty good but earlier in the race I had pressed the wrong button on my stopwatch and only noticed after at least five minutes had elapsed so I knew I had time to make up to come in under my target of 5 hours. I aimed to keep pace with a couple of Swedish guys ahead of me. I crossed the line and crossed my fingers hoping I had made it. I called Toby and found out from him via my brother Hugo back in England who had been tracking me on the internet (thanks to my sister Natasha who spotted this great free system on the NYC Marathon website - that’s how brilliantly organised the event is!) that I had just made it over the line in 4:58:56! and in to the New York Times edition this morning which printed the names of all the 35,399 runners who broke 5 hours…
What an amazing feeling! I had done what I set out to do: complete the marathon – all 26.2 miles! and if things were going well to come in under 5 hours, and come back injury free. And most importantly for a great cause. It felt so good to be running for REACH Grenada knowing that every cent/penny raised would be going towards improving the lives of the vulnerable children that the Foundation supports. So a big THANK YOU! to all my sponsors. I reached my marathon target but still have a way to go to reach my fundraising target so anyone wishing to sponsor me can still do so as my runner’s page will remain open until 2nd December.
P.S. Not that I’m superstitious… but in my pocket I carried a lucky cent I found on the sidewalk the day before; and for inspiration, a card with the following quote from William James which crops up in the book Born To Run… apparently the ultra runner Scott Jurek signs off his emails with it:
“Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.”