NYC Marathon Saturday in Pictures

The Japanese Power Sushi Ranger Team

 

Expo Welcome

 

With Hal Higdon

 

With Desiree Davilia

 

The IMMORTAL Bib!

Sleepless In New York

So I realize I’m 3000 miles from Seattle, but I’ve been up for an hour.  I guess I’m preparing myself for the 5 hrs of sleep I’ll be lucky to get tonight going into marathon Sunday?? Oh well, such is life!  Yesterday was my travel day to NYC.  I’ve been in Kansas the past 6 weeks and flew out from the Kansas City Airport into NYC- Laguardia.  I love having a free ticket out here!  I was originally suppose  to leave at 630 pm, but I’m convinced there was some sort of divine intervention as I was done with work and such around noon.  I hopped on the phone with Delta to see if I could switch my flight to the 205 flight.  By some sort of higher power, there was a seat available and $50 later, I was on a flight that got me into NYC at 6 instead of 10:15 (Delta, take note, I’ve switched my free Southwest ticket back to KC for free twice….just saying).  The flight was pretty uneventful- no crying kids or people running up and down the aisle  and we got in on time.  I also got away with not having to check any bags.  When it comes to checking my running stuff, I’m kind of more than anal about keeping with me if at all possible.

I had a van shuttle set up to the Port Authority which is a block away from where I’m staying.  That part of my trip was an adventure to say the least.  It was taking 5 of us total to Manhattan, which is fine.  After waiting 20 minutes for it to show up, one of the workers kept looking for the 5th person even though all 5 of us were there.  Next time, she should look for the short person who so happens to be standing behind the driver (in case you didn’t know, that would be me).  After loading into the van, we attempted to make our way to downtown.  I’m convinced our driver was lost and crazy.  We went in the same circle getting on and off the highway twice and then headed on some street in Queens which took us parallel to what was essentially the 160s street wise of Manhattan. Really?  He then decided he was going to take some street that ran underneath the subway to the Queensburo Bridge.  That somehow took an hour. An HOUR! I realize NYC has traffic, as I’ve been here plenty of times and I’ve lived in my fair share of cities.  But I was questioning this driver.  He gave me a headache and I was to the point of being nauseous because of his driving.  I’m still convinced he had no idea what he was doing

Once we made it into the city, we were only suppose to stop at Penn Station and the Port Authority and maybe Grand Central Station.  He dropped someone off at the Marriot and completely bypassed Grand Central (the poor guy trying to get off at Grand Central had missed 3 trains home at that point and is suppose to take the CPA on Monday).  We ended up in Times Square and 3 of us asked to just be let off.  My hotel was close enough where a walk was more then appropriate.

I finally got to my hotel at 810, over an hour after leaving the airport.  When I was checking in, I thought they didn’t have enough rooms for a second, but soon enough, I was heading up to the biggest room I’ve ever head in NYC (I appreciate redeeming hotel reward points and $60).  I found some dinner near by (Shake Shack) and picked up some water and powerade at the Duane Reade by the hotel. I went to bed at 10 with some football on which is always a plus

I’m planning to do a shake out run, just to loosen up the legs. I’ll probably do it at the hotel in a bit and then go get my stuff at the expo, but there’s still time to decide 🙂