ing nyc marathon

the weekend of halloween was the annual ING New York City Marathon. the course runs through all of the five boroughs and happens to go through brooklyn right down the street from my apartment. when i ran the 1/2 marathon, having the cheers from the spectators really helped at the low points, so i thought i would return the favor and cheer them on. oscar and i got around an made our way down to the race.

before we went out i watched the start of the race on tv and timed it out so i would get there just before the women's lead group went by. paula radcliff who hold the world record and who was also expected to win the race is leading the pack in this picture. derartu tutu from ethiopia is also in this shot, she actually ended up taking the race the last mile or so.



the lead men's group was released after the women's. meb keflezighi is the leader of the pack and ended up winning the race. he is the first american to win the nyc marathon since 1982.



another pretty cool thing was nyc mayor mike bloomberg was riding in black old Cadillac between the lead groups and the rest of the racers. i thought it was pretty cool.



i wanted to stick around so i could see the crowd of runners. since it was the day after halloween there were a few people running dressed up in costume. i don't know how they ran 26.2 miles especially dressed up as tigger but it was funny.



i'm not sure if oscar enjoyed being there but he was pretty into it. he was watching the whole time.



there were three fire truck parked up along the race. all three had signs up cheering on their fellow firefighters. i thought it was pretty cool.





watching the race definitely inspired me to start running again and perhaps do a marathon in the future. we will see.