NYC Marathon

This morning the sun was bright, the sky was blue, and my friend Alex ran his first marathon. In support, I went to watch for the first time. My Friend Jay lives right over the 13 mile mark in Greenpoint, and he was throwing his annual bloody mary marathon brunch party... and so that was obviously my first stop. It's a cool feeling to watch the leading women run into your neirhborhood on TV, and then you run downstairs, and there they are, running by.

So i missed him there... when he came by he was on the right, but there was this huge dense pack at the time, and I was on the wrong side of the street and couldn't get across. No matter... still more chances to catch him.
With my giant...
RUN
ALEX
RUN!
sign in hand, I took off for the second stop, at East 120th and 1st. My train karma was excellent, and I caught the the L and changed right to the 4 express, no wait.
So I'm strolling over to the spot, thinking i have plenty of time. I see my friends all huddled together. Apparently they had been talking about how "Shit, Brian missed him again," but then they saw me and were like... "He's got a white t-shirt and green shorts on, you just missed him... go, go, go, run run run!!!"
So I took off in a 6 block sprint thinking of high school track all over again. Then I zeroed in on him, overtook him, and jumped right in front with my giant sign held high over my head. He started laughing his ass off as I jumped up and down screaming, "Run Alex, Run!" The people all around me witnessed the whole thing, and then they started screaming ""Run Alex, Run!" It was incredible. This was at about mile 18 or so.
Then the 7 of us hurried off to the 6 train and took it to 100th St. We got off and hustled on over to 5th ave. We weren't sure if we'd missed him or not... but then the guy who was dressed up like a german with a giant beer mug in his hand ran by, and everywhere Natalie (Alex's fiance) had gone today, when that guy passed, Alex was almost exactly 5 minutes behind. Then, 5 minutes later... there was Alex, still looking okay at about 21 miles in.
He has never run more than 20 miles before... later on he told us that the last four... were... HELL. But he had set a goal and sure did accomplish it. The man said he was gonna do something, and he did it. Cheers to my friend Alex.
Then we caught up with him after the race, and all went out for a beer. After a little while, another marathon runner came in to use the bathroom. To Alex, she was like, "Hey, did you go home and shower and change already?"
No, we are just a pretty damn hard core little crew!
Anyway, I just thought I'd share with y'all... today was a very cool unique day in NYC. I almost feel ike I ran my own little marathon chasing this one all day. Good times! Between this and the Halloween parade, this has been quite a week

This is local correspondent lordrockinhood signing off... with pictures to follow...

1st up, the wheelchairs were the leaders of the pack



Then came the leading women... I only managed to catch Paula Radcliffe, the ethiopian girl got cut off , but I did get a great shot of her, and she did end up winning



Then came the leading pack of men, Kenya with the edge on first



and last but certainly not least... the masses...



Later, up by central park, my friend Alex runs by, mile 21ish, hurting all over, but still looking great... he never walked once, just ran the whole way no matter what.



RUN
ALEX
RUN!



and he finished... in about 4:15 he thinks... now time for that beer!