Today was the 50th running of the NYC Marathon going through all five boroughs. (It originally started as a simple multi-lap race inside Central Park.) Alas, I was not running it. It would've been great to be on the pace team for this one. For now, I'll have to be happy with the several times I've already run it -- to include my 50th marathon on its 50th running just months before my 50th birthday; nice synchronicity there.
Today looked like they had fantastic conditions. I got to the gym a little before 9am to do my treadmill run while I watched the race on ESPN2. The wheelchair races were nearly an hour in already, the elite women had just hit the 5km mark, and the elite men were only minutes from starting. Given my plan to run 13.1 miles at the pace I'll be pacing next week, I was going to be able to see all of the race finishes.
First up: men's wheelchair. Daniel Romanchuk (USA) was in the lead very late ahead of Marcel Hug (Switzerland) -- something that doesn't happen all that often. After they made their way into Central Park, with less than 800m to go, the Silver Bullet (Hug) found one more gear and pulled ahead of Romanchuk, finishing a few seconds in front of him. What an exciting finish!
Next: women's wheelchair. Catherine Debrunner (Switzerland) absolutely dominated the field, finishing about 7.5 minutes ahead of her nearest competitors: Tatyana McFadden and Susanna Scaroni.
Elite women had one heckuva battle at the end. In the last couple of miles, it looked like it was going to be a nail-biter between Sheila Chepkirui and Helen Obiri (both Kenya). Slowly but surely, seemingly unbeknownst to them, Jessica McClain (USA) was steadily moving up, closing a decent-sized gap. After making their way into Central Park, Chepkirui was able to pull away from Obiri, who faded ever so slightly. And inside of the last 100m, McClain narrowed the several-second gap and passed Obiri, finishing in 2nd place about 1 second up. The nail-biter for first turned into a nail-biter for second. Great!
Finally the elite men. There was a newbie in the field who was in the lead pack the whole time, and was in the lead going into the last couple of miles. Andreas Almgren (Sweden) laid it all out in the last 800m to leave everyone else in his dust, as he seemingly easily pulled out a win in his debut marathon!
All of this happening in the same amount of time that I ran 13.1 miles on the treadmill. Oy!
While I would've loved to have been running it, cheering from afar was still fun. Fingers crossed that I'll be able to join the team pacing the marathon sometime in the next few years, "moving up" from being on the pace team for some of their training runs to NYRR's premier races.
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