Marathon Day!!!!!!!!!

Today was marathon day. I woke up at 5 am this morning unable to go back to sleep, worried that I might not see my friends as they ran past... what can I say ...? I was excited. Mike and Gina signed me up to receive updates on their progress in my blackberry so with that, the careful chart that Gina put together, indicating where she expected to be and when, and our bright red team t-shirts, we were ready. I wanted to make sure we made it out there before the runners go to our block and sure enough, this is what it was like at 10:30 this morning. Neighbors slowing lining up, a band playing in the Mobil Station parking lot. I was still so excited I couldn't even go with Stephen to get coffee, thinking I might miss something (even though neither Mike or Gina were to arrive any time soon).



Then, off in the distance.. a lone pack of runners...



.. and so it began.



..police escort...



..and another tight pack of runners..



.. they started to trickle by..



.. the trickle got larger..



..and larger. There were 40 thousand runners today.. 40 thousand. We stood and cheered and clapped, calling out runners names for encouragement - most have their names on the fronts of their shirts for this very reason. Pretty soon Gina called (yes, she had her cell phone with her) to say she was at 53rd, about 20 blocks away. The excitement was building.



In no time at all there she was! She is the one in the middle of the picture in the orange shirt and purple shorts (not the woman with her arms raised.. she thought we were cheering for her). We cheered an got/gave high fives. We were supposed to leave right then to head to Manhattan to meet the rest of the members of the posse, but we hadn't seen Mike yet and I was afraid we had missed him. We stayed a few more minutes just in case he had started later than Gina did. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later there he was! I was looking the other way and he came up so fast I didn't get a picture but high fives were enjoyed by all! Off to Manhattan we went!


This is still Brooklyn.. look at the people!!!!!!!!! We had been standing there for over an hour and they were still coming as far as you could see.





High fives are sort of a Brooklyn thing, as I understand it.



The posse on our way to 1st Avenue. We almost got crushed trying to get there - so many people I literally had trouble breathing at one point, my chest was actually compressed from the pressure of the crowd.



Here are the runners on 1st Avenue. We got there and pushed around trying to get close to the street so Mike and Gina would be able to see us and moments after we chose a spot, Mike came jogging past! We all screamed his name at the top of our lungs but he was in a zone or had his iPod on or something so he didn't hear us :) But we were there cheering anyway! Right between the 16th and 17th mile.



Gina saw us though! There she is in her purple shorts again! Both she and Mike looked so good, keeping a nice steady pace and looking like they were out for a leisurely jog. Awesome!
The posse got so excited that we all decided to head up the Bronx to try to see them again. We jumped on the subway and headed towards 138th Street. On the way we worried that we might not get there in time so we got out in Harlem at 125th Street and sprinted to 1st Avenue to cheer our runners.



At this point the runners are at 20 miles and it is getting very difficult. They all need as much support as they can get. We knew Mike was too fast for us and that we had probably already missed him at his lightening pace, but we thought that we still might be able to catch Gina since her pace was slightly behind his. We were there for what felt like 3o minutes or more before my blackberry got the latest alert letting us know she had already passed us! We had missed her by minutes! Oh well. I cheered myself hoarse for total strangers and was excited to do it, so no harm done. Just sorry we didn't get to see our guys before this particularly brutal leg of the race. The Bronx does not have many spectators and there is apparently a really difficult hill there. We were with you guys in spirit!!!



Here they are, entering the bridge that will take them to the Bronx and eventually back to Manhattan and the finish line in the park. I am happy to report (according to my blackberry) that both Gina and Mike finished the race in fantastic time.

What a great afternoon, racing around the boroughs cheering for friends. Seeing the happy faces of perfect strangers when you called out their name - "Good job Kelly!! Way to stick with it Dave!!" - made my weekend. Nice work everyone.