I was skiing in the mountains of Colorado with my brother Michael during spring break (April 2011), when he suggested

to me "lets run the NY Marathon for a Grenada charity for kids". He lives in Grenada, which is an island in the West Indies. I said, "the furthest I have ever run is a half marathon 20 years ago, and after I finished I swore I'd never run that far again!" That was that. After a week or two I called him up, and said, "lets do it!" He said "really? I wasn't serious." After talking about it, we decided to go for it. We contacted the charity (Mike already knew who to talk to, it is a very small island) and got accepted as runners to the ING NYC Marathon. Our goal is to raise $110,000 dollars all to help disadvantaged children. I went on-line, bought some books, and did some research. Mike and I decided to follow the same 18 week program for beginners which consists of running 4 days a week, paying attention to nutrition, and progressively increasing your distance with a weekly long run up to 20 miles. At that point you are ready for the marathon. We also decided to follow a run/walk method recommended by a famous marathoner named Jeff Galloway. Run half a mile, walk a minute, and repeat. I ran for a couple of months to get ready for the 18-week program, which started July 4th. Mike was already in shape, he did a "Tin Man" during the two months, which is half an Iron Man. We both did the 18-week program, and communicated via email on how we were feeling. I really enjoyed the training, lost a little weight, and got into better shape than I've been for a while. The last long run I did was 22 miles, with no problems, and I felt confident I could run a marathon. 14 members of my family traveled to NYC to cheer us on from Denver, Grenada, Washington DC, and Atlanta. We rented a large penthouse apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan (east side of the island south of Central Park) with a great view of the city. I flew in Thursday afternoon, and met my sister Amy and her son Maloy, and another of my nephews, Ryan (Mike's son). Mike arrived at the condo Friday morning with his wife Julie, and daughter Alex. View facing west from the Condo (Empire State Building on right) Mike and I wanted to go to the Marathon expo and get our race packets, and thought it would be a good idea to walk over. It turned out to be a 2 and a half mile walk, from the east side over to the west side, 5 miles round trip! It took us the rest of the morning and half the afternoon. The expo was packed with runners and gear. We restrained ourselves and only purchased a few necessities caps, gloves, shirts, etc. Then we went to a place called "hamburgers and cupcakes" and had a hamburger, cupcake, and lemonade - the perfect pre-race meal! On the way back we stopped at KMart and bought a couple of inflatable beds, some throwaway sweatpants, and two sleeping bags, then lugged it all the way back to

the apartment. Walking in NYC is hard! Lots of people to dodge. By the time we got back we were exhausted and agreed that it was not a good idea to spend the day walking all over NY. By then my sister Jennifer and her husband Randy and their son Quinn had showed up, so we were now 11. We went out to a delicious dinner at a Lebanese Restaurant (another long walk) and got back to the apartment about 8:00PM. My wife AnneMarie and my two boys, Alexander and Matthew had landed in LaGuardia, and we expected them to show up any minute. Unfortunately, it took them about an hour and a half to get a cab from LaGuardia Friday nights are busy at the airport. They finally arrived about 9:30 (plane landed at 7:00) cold and hungry. They ate and we all went to bed. Saturday, we all split up. Randy and Jennifer went to Central Park, The older cousins went to a models photo shoot, Amy took Matthew and Maloy to see the Statue of Liberty, AnneMarie, Alexander and Julie went shopping, and Mike and I went for our last training run. We ran along the East River for a couple of miles, then went back to the condo and met my dad, who had just arrived from Washington DC by train. Now we totaled 15! Mike and dad and I decided to travel down to the Staten Island Ferry station as a practice run for the following morning. We found the subway, and rode it down to the southern tip of Manhattan. It took about 30 minutes, so we figured we needed to leave the following morning at 7:00am to have plenty of time to catch the 8:00am ferry. At that point we were getting hungry, so we arranged to meet some of the family near ground zero, and have lunch. It seemed close, so we walked (a long way) up to Wall Street. We thought it would be fun to see the Occupy Wall Street protesters, so walked to the park where they are camped out. It was pretty underwhelming, a very small park with a hundred or so folks camped out, outnumbered by tourists, media, and street vendors. There was not much going on, so we decided to move on to lunch, and then check out the construction on Freedom Tower.

We had a late lunch (grilled chicken, veggies and mashed potatoes) then walked over to Freedom Tower. What an impressive sight! It is going to be a beautiful area when all finished. We traipsed all over, looking for a view of the memorial at ground zero, but were unsuccessful. You have to buy tickets to get in. At that point, Mike and I said enough! We are exhausted! We need naps! We then grabbed a cab and went back to the apartment for a short rest.

Look closely, you can see Mike and Dad in the shadow

Saturday evening we all went out to eat at a self-serve BBQ joint. Mike and I were able to resist the beef, and had more grilled chicken and mashed sweet potatoes. Then it was back to the condo and bed. We needed some rest, having spent the last two days traipsing all over New York.

The wives think we are crazy.

We got up Sunday morning, psyched to run our first marathon! We were a little late getting out the door, leaving around 7:10. We walked a couple of blocks to the subway and went down to wait for the train. The sign said train 6 was due in 5 minutes and train 6 was due in 15 minutes. We wanted train 4. We needed to make the 8:00am Staten Island Ferry, and started to get a little worried. Another runner came down and stood there waiting for the train. We went over and asked her if she was taking the ferry. She said she was, and that the 6 was fine, we would ride it to the end, and then get on the 4 to the ferry stop. It turned out that she had practiced the day before and knew exactly what to do. She said "what time is your ferry ride?" We said "8:00". She said "oooooo, it is going to be close, mine is 8:30". We then chatted all the way to the ferry stop (all runners are friends). We parted ways at that point, wishing each other a great run. Mike and I hurried to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, ran up the escalator, cut in front of a huge line, ignored the attendants, forced our way past a large sliding glass door as it was closing, and leapt onto the 8:00 ferry as it was about to leave. We were the last people on. We found a seat on the lower deck and relaxed for the 40 minute ride. The temperature outside was 39 degrees Fahrenheit, but we had 3 layers of clothing on, and the ferry was warm. We reached Staten Island, and the ferry(s) slowly disgorged all the runners. It was a river of people, flowing through the terminal and outside to the street. Lined up on the street were (what seemed like) hundreds of buses. We flowed onto a bus and sat down. It then left the terminal and drove for a long time, probably another 30-40 minutes to the Marathon Village at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We got off a bus, used a porta-potty, and walked to the "Blue Zone" where we were supposed to start from. We got there about 9:40 the start time for the Wave 1 runners, including the elite and more serious runners. We were in Wave 3 (the last wave) at the back of the pack, so we had another hour until our start time of 10:40. The weather was turning out to be beautiful, bright sunshine and warming up. We took off our outer layer, stuffed it into our UPS bags, and gave them to the UPS truck that corresponded with our bib numbers. This was a nice feature UPS gave us a large clear bag with our number on it at the Expo. The transported the bag from the start line to the finish line for us, so we could have clothes, etc. to put on after the race. We then went into our "corral". They had the 3rd wave split up into 3 parallel groups, Blue, Green, and Orange. We were Blue. Blue wave 3 was then split up into 1000 person "corrals". The corrals were set up in a line, and sectioned off from each other by rope. We found our corral and waited with the rest of the cattle.

Around 10:30 they took down all the ropes, and we flowed to the start point, which was a large area at the start of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, where all the toll booths are (the bridge was closed to all traffic). We heard "God Bless America" and some inspirational speeches, then a howitzer was fired, and off we ran! Well, no, actually we did not move an inch right away. It takes a while for 15,000 people to get moving. Pretty soon we were jogging in place, and then slowly jogging shoulder to shoulder in a tight crowd of runners. The pace across the bridge was very slow, lots of jostling. We got about a half mile and I told Mike hey we have gone a half mile, but lets keep running. He said Pat stick with the program! so we moved over to the side and walked for a minute. We then started back up and did the run/walk thing across the bridge and into Brooklyn. I found running to be very difficult much different than my training at home, where I was by myself. There were so many people I could not run the steady pace that I wanted to run. Mike and I were constantly dodging people and moving side to side as well as forward. There were people running faster (not many) and people running slower (lots). Still, it was pretty cool to be running with so many people. Also, there were spectators packed on the sides of the roads every inch of the way! The only places without spectators were the bridges. Our family saw us for the first time in Brooklyn, around mile 4. We ran past them screaming and yelling and high-fiving, then settled in for the long run. Our pace was slower than expected, but we simply ran with the crowd. At mile 8 we took a right turn, and they had a huge screen up above the

road. I watched Geoffrey Mutai win the race as we went through the turn. We still had over 3 hours to go!! We ran north through the Bronx, then crossed into Queens, running parallel to the East River. We were still run/walking, eating a shot blok every mile, and drinking plenty of water. By mile 12, the runners had spread out a little, and you could run freely. Mike and I started looking for a porta-potty at that point, as we had done a great job hydrating. At mile 13 we stopped for several minutes to wait for an use a portapotty, then started off again feeling much better. The cousins As we left the mile 13 station (halfway point), I started to feel a twinge in my right knee. As I kept running, it got worse and worse. We turned left and crossed over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, arriving at mile 16. At that point, my knee was hurting. Every step was very painful. I learned that walking was actually worse than running; it would stiffen up so quickly that it was hard to start running again. We turned north, and began running up Manhattan along the East River. Our fans met us between mile 17 and 18, screaming and yelling encouragement. It was fantastic! Mike and I put on our happy faces, straightened up and ran proud until we were out of their sight.

Still Smiling!

We continued north, crossing the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx, arriving at mile 20. The run through the Bronx was short and hilly, running through a very pleasant residential area of brownstone buildings. We then crossed back over into Manhattan across the Madison Avenue bridge, and turned south for our run down to Central Park. At that point we were at mile 21 and had 5 miles to go. My knee was on fire! I slowed down dramatically, and could not walk at all. I would jog in place during our one minute walk sessions. I knew that if I stopped I would not be able to start up again. We slowly ran south through Central Park towards the finish. The family saw us one more time around mile 25. Even though they were screaming and yelling our names, I never saw them! Mike saw them at the last minute, and gave them a quick wave. Both of us were focused on the finish, as we had been running for almost 5 hours.

No happy face at this point! We just want to finish! We finally crossed the finish line at 5:19:51 about an hour longer than I expected! My goal (and Mikes), however, was met we finished! What a great feeling. Five hours of pounding on your feet, however, is quite an ordeal.

After we finished we walked and collected our medal, a goodie bag (apple, water, candy bar, nuts, etc) and aluminum blanket. It was getting dark and cold. We entered a long narrow roadway with a high fence on either side, and proceeded to shuffle along for about another 90 minutes. Thousands of runners crammed together, shuffling down the roadway. Nobody was happy. We finally got to our UPS truck and retrieved our bags. By that time, Mike and my teeth were chattering we were so cold. We put on our pants and jackets, and shuffled to the parks exit. By then it was full dark. We walked to a subway station, and got on the first subway south. We obviously looked very puzzled about how to get back to the condo, because a runner on the train (all runners are friends) asked us where we were going and gave us directions. We went about four stops, then got off and took a cab back to the apartment. I think it was about 7:00PM when we got back. The whole event took us 12 hours! What a day! We showered and rested for a short bit, then went out to eat at a small Italian Restaurant nearby. Then back to the apartment and pack up for the flight back home. I had a 7:00am flight back to Atlanta in order to make a managers meeting at work. Amy wanted to leave early as well to drive back to Washington, so we left the apartment at 4:30am and she dropped me off at the airport. I was in the office by 10:00. Back at last! My knee ached constantly all day Monday, so I decided to take Tuesday off and go to the Orthopedist. I found out that I had severely irritated my Ilial Tibial Band (ITB) which is a band of tissue that connects your hip to your knee. This condition is common in runners and is called runners knee. While I had no symptoms during training, it seems that all the dodging side to side and slowing down and speeding up caused it to get irritated then continuing to run caused more damage and swelling. Therapy is ice, stretching, Advil, and no exercise for two weeks. I learned that I have not been adequately stretching my thigh muscles, which were very tight. Keeping them loose and well stretched will help me avoid this problem in the future. While the orthopedist was rotating my knee around we heard a loud popping noise (very uncomfortable!). He could repeat it every time with my right knee, but not my left. He thinks I may also have a torn Miniscus, which is material under the kneecap. The only fix is orthoscopic surgery. So, he sent me for an MRI, which I did on Wednesday. Ill find out the results next week when I visit him again. Hopefully it is OK, if not Ill have to decide what to do, I suspect Ive had this for a while, and running did not seem to irritate it, but golf and tennis do. Not exercising is terrible! Ive become an addict, plus I like to eat! Mike and I have to decide what the next goal is, I definitely want to run another marathon, and see if I cannot significantly improve the finish time. Im thinking the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington DC next November would be perfect. Anyone want to join me?

For our first 12 miles, we averaged a 10.7 minutes per mile pace. At that pace, we were looking at a 4:30 marathon, which is about what I had expected. Throw out the porta-potty break and the whining about my knee break, and the second 12 miles averaged a 13 minutes per mile pace, and getting worse every mile. Hence the 5:19 time. I think we would have done better if no knee injury. Sorry Mike!

This is the run as captured by my Garmin watch The left map shows the travel through the 5 boroughs. The top graph shows the elevation. The bottom graph shows our pace.