The alarm kicked me out of bed at 4:30AM to catch the bus to Staten Island, where the ING New York City Marathon 2008 started. The buses in midtown departed in front of the public library, just few block away from my hotel. When I arrived, dozens of buses were already waiting on the Fifth Avenue to transport all runners to Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. We arrived at 5:30AM - almost five hours before the start. It was very cold at that time and I was happy to have a second jacket, which in the end could not warm me up either. I tried to get some sleep in between of thousands of runners but did the cold (4 degrees) not really allow that. At 7AM I had some bagels and tea for breakfast before I spent another 3 hours with ... waiting.
At 10:00AM the loudspeakers announced that the third starting wave (the first and second wave were professional runners and those who expected themselves to be). We lined up and then walked slowly to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the starting point of the marathon. After a short speech and the typical American "God bless America" the race started. Weather conditions were perfect, sunny with light wind, about eight degrees.
I tried to push the race in the very beginning to have more time left in the end if I would get tired. With four hours, I had despite all the training I did, still an ambitious target time. Already on the first miles over the bridge I passed many other runners and tried always to catch up with others who were faster than me. After less than ten minutes I arrived Brooklyn and was really surprised by the crowd of people awaiting the runners and cheering. I finished the first 10km in 50 minutes, a good time. After 1:30 I got seriously hungry but unfortunately I did not carry any food with me. Therefore I was very happy to take some salt pretzels from a little black boy in Queens. I reached the half marathon mark after 21.1km and a personal record of 1:48 hours on the way up the Queensboro Bridge. After 25km I arrived Manhattan. The streets were even more crowded with people. While running up the second avenue I had the first time some doubts whether I would be able to make it in four hours since I remarkably slowed down and other runners started to pass me. However, the served energy gel of Powerbar and the arrival of the 30km mark after 2:40 and of the Bronx finally brought all my motivation and energy back. At this point I started not to feel any pain in my legs any longer. I did not notice what the people around were shouting (it was something like "Come on runners", "You can do it", "You look good"...). I was just running. Running. As fast as possible. I did not feel tired at all, so I kept pushing and passing other runners. When I reached Central Park North, the street was quite crowded and it was hard to find a way through the other runners as many of them already remarkably slowed down. At 86th Street, near the Guggenheim Museum we turned right into Central Park.
After 3:37:32 hours I arrived km40 and shortly after Central Park South. At this time I knew that I would make it for sure, to do the marathon in less than four hours. I felt still pretty strong, so I followed a police motorbike that was forcing some runners to step aside. At Columbus Circle we turned for the last time, back northbound into the central park. I reached mile marker 26, i.e. only 385 yards were to go. At this time I started to sprint, to invest the rest of my energy to get a good time in the end.
After about 3:50 I passed the finish line. I did not get the official results immediately but did my stop watch tell me a very positive result. I do not remember exactly whether I was happy or tired or whether I just wanted to continue running in this great atmosphere. Right after the finish line, all finishers got the official finisher medal. Volunteers handed over aluminum blankets to keep warm and drinks and some food.
I continued to the baggage truck of UPS where I handed it my belongings in the morning on Staten Island, then I left Central Park and the ING New York City Marathon 2008. I headed to 72nd Street to catch the subway back to the hotel but since I had only a 20-dollar bill, I had to go to McDonalds to get cheeseburgers and change (and free water sponsored by McDonalds -thx!) I arrived at our hotel at around 4PM, almost half a day after I started this great adventure in the early morning.
At seven I woke up after my shower and the necessary nap. I went to the Bubba Gump restaurant to finish the day with a huge portion of shrimps. In the end I ordered the dish with the highest number of calories, just to get back what I burned during my longest run.
