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June 11, 2005
Big day of running in NYC
Matt and I are on the train to Westchester right now, so hopefully I’ll remember to post this when I get to my parents’ house! Aside from sitting on the subway and on a bus, this is the first time I’ve gotten to sit down and collect my thoughts after a long day. I was out the door this morning for a quick run before 6am, and although it was difficult to get up so early (especially when Matt and his sister came home from being out at around 3:30am) but it was actually nice to run in the city before any of the tourists were awake. I saw a lot of bikers on the Brooklyn Bridge, but I didn’t have to dodge the throngs of walkers (amblers would be more precise) enjoying the view. I was a little nervous in lower Manhattan/Chinatown because it was so empty—except for the homeless people sleeping in the parks—but I quickly got over that. I returned to Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge, which I am beginning to really like. For one thing, the pedestrian path is lower than the cars, so it is somewhat shady and definitely shielded from direct sunlight. Secondly, the path runs along one side of the bridge, so you get a great view of what’s around without any obstruction. Finally, the path is relatively flat! I assumed that they were all sloped similarly to the one over the Brooklyn Bridge, but happily that is not the case.
I was really worried about having a subway mixup and not getting to the start of the Mini in time to get a spot on the press truck, but it all worked out. The subway line I needed to take was screwy, but there were lots of other runners headed to Central Park to follow. I met Alison near the race start at Tavern on the Green and we joined the rest of the reporters, photographers and VIPs aboard the truck. It was really cool to be waiting on the truck, watching runners like Benita Johnson and Tegla Loroupe finish their final warm-ups mixed in with top local athletes and recreational runners.
Once the race started, it turned out to be sort of anticlimactic. Lornah Kiplagat took the lead right from the beginning and ended up far enough ahead of everyone else so that those of us in the lead vehicle were only able to see her race and had no idea what was happening in the chase pack. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome to watch her seemingly effortless stride as she clicked off close to 5-minute miles, but I wanted to see where everyone else was! When we got to the finish, I was able to see some more finishes. I was especially impressed with a woman from DC (a friend of a friend) who was one of the top American women. In fact, I was impressed with everyone who ran hard today—the humidity and heat were awful.
After the race, I spent a couple of hours working on my story for the NYRR site and then it was time to go to the Reebok Grand Prix. Many of the people I worked with in the morning covering the Mini were also working at this meet, so I was very grateful to just be able to sit there with Matt and enjoy it. Although the weather was obviously not ideal for the distance races, we saw some great performances, including a gutsy a few sub-2:00 800s (Jen Toomey, Treniere Clement are two of them that I can remember), a near-world record 5K and a really exciting finish in the men’s 3K. My favorite part of the meet was the fact that after their races, most of the athletes came up and sat in the stands with friends and family. I’m definitely a track groupie so I loved looking behind me and seeing Shalane Flanagan and Amy Mortimer right there! Getting back to Brooklyn from the meet took an interminably long time, but all in all I had a great day and enjoyed being so close to the action!
Posted by becky at June 11, 2005 11:22 PM
Comments
That's awesome Becky! And happy birthday!!! Was it yesterday? Hope you had a great time!!!
Posted by: Nanda at June 13, 2005 10:03 AM