marathon weekend was right after nationals weekend. very exciting. nov. 3 through 8 was when our trip took place...
nyc was super fun. we flew out friday morning - alex took us to the airport, which was awesome. we arrived at LGA around 1pm, and headed straight for kate's friend erika's place. she and her husband jonathan live in this co-op building in jackson heights in queens. it's an incredible place. and i had never heard of people owning buildings like they do. it's like all the tenants are shareholders in a company. evidently it's a very new york thing. erika was extremely pregnant, and i found out a couple days ago that they had their baby the day after kate and i left new york!
we got to hang out with yitz friday night (he met us at the javits center at the expo). we did the expo thing (which included getting some sweet orange ING sunglasses and little shots of coors light), then hung out for awhile at susie's, then went to eat at an italian place called gennaro or something like that. saturday i met nina and bradley, who also live in the building - nina, erika, and jesse all went to college together and now all live in the same building. neato. anyway, we went to brunch. then i went with the ladies for pedicures. my first one. i think we basically just hung out around the apartment the rest of the day. we made dinner. i planned my route of attack for spectating the next day. went to bed relatively early after finally conquering a sudoku puzzle.
sunday morning, kate got up really early and departed to take the subway at 6am to get to the bus stop where she and beth (her cousin) were meeting. the buses would take them to staten island, the starting point of the race. so, the marathon traverses all 5 borroughs (staten island, brooklyn, queens, manhattan, the bronx, then back to manhattan), and i was hoping to see kate in each one. but after checking out the map a little, and gauging my walking/subwaying ability, i felt that it'd be a success if i saw her in 3 (brooklyn, queens, manhattan). my plan: 1- mile 8 in brooklyn (around lafayette and flatbush); 2- mile 13 in queens where i'd meet up with erika and jonathan (near the pulaski bridge on jackson); 3- mile 18 in manhattan (first and 96th); 4- mile 23 or 23.5 in manhattan (5th and 96th). we even planned which side of the road i'd be on so kate would know where to look.
prior to seeing kate, i wanted to see the frontrunning men at mile 8. i would've loved to have seen the wheelchairs and women, but they were going to pass mile 8 too early for me. i left the house at 9:30 and got on the E - i was planning to take it a couple stops to 23rd-ely and transfer onto the G to go down to brooklyn. i saw the G, and should've just taken it. because as it turned out, the E was running on the F route, and there were no transfer points to the G from there. i had to go all the way into the city, then i transfered to the A or C to get to hoyt-somethingorother which was just a few blocks' walk from where i wanted to be. it took me probably an hour, and i got there just in time to see the men. it was cool. yitz ended up meeting up with me at mile 8, just before kate was scheduled to pass us. it was great getting to hang out with him basically all day while we looked for kate among the masses. we saw kate only like 5-10 minutes past the estimated time of arrival at mile 8. seemed like good work considering how tough it must be to dodge the 35,000 other runners at the start. yitz and i got on the G heading back up to queens immediately after. we got off at 21st and walked on jackson towards what looked like barriers for the race. we soon saw runners, walked a little farther, and saw jonathan. erika had gone to the bathroom at ten63 (a restaurant/bar thingy where their friend works). they started passing out bananas to people. somebody passed out near us and yitz went to do his duty as an offduty emt while erika went to fetch a police officer. kate and beth came by soon after - we gave kate combos (yitz found them, which was fantastic). yitz and i then headed off for manhattan on one of the blue trains (A/C/E - can't remember which). we transferred to a green train (4/5/6) to go up on lexington towards 96th. i wanted to be at 96th and first for mile 18 as they headed up manhattan towards the bronx, but i think the train put us out more like 92nd or 94th, which was fine. we walked east towards 1st, where there was a huge crowd, and waited. we inched ourselves towards the edge so we could get close and look for kate and beth. and before too long, we found kate. yitz had gotten some gatorade for them - it was hot out there (around 70). but kate didn't know where beth was. we ended up seeing her about a minute later. after that, we took a bus back west towards central park (5th runs on the east side of the park) it ended up turning south earlier than we wanted, and plopped us down at around 86th. we walked on 5th up a few blocks, and ended up around 92nd and 5th just before the runners turn in to the park. it seemed like we waited here the longest. yitz had his brother checking on the internet and reporting back to us via the crackberry about whatever times and pace he could find on the marathon website. kate was on pace to make about her goal (4:30). she was hanging in there when we saw her at 23.whatever. tired, but still looking good. from here, yitz and i caught a cab to take us to the other side of the park. we met up with susie a few blocks from where kate and i had planned to meet (73rd and central park west - just west of the park and where the stuff-recovery for runners was). we hung out for a bit (i sat - tired from the up and down stairs for the subway as well as walking all around), and then kate found us with her space blanket and medal on. we waited a bit to see if beth would show up, but she didn't. we then got on a bus headed toward susie's place just north and west of the park. got some slices of pizza, and relaxed for a bit at susie's. yitz had to go to work around 6 (ambulance in new jersey). kate and i stayed at susie's for a bit, talked a little NY politics, then left to meet beth and jarrad, who were staying close to there (something like 111th - we were at 94th or so). had dinner with them (well, dinner #2). then we headed back to erika and jonathan's. they were eating with bradley, so of course we had to help them eat their food, too (dinner #3).
it was cool to get to hang out through monday and tuesday afterwards. monday, erika took a sick day and we went to breakfast. then kate and i wandered the city in the afternoon. we went to chinatown, walked through little italy, walked around the east village (by then it was dark - gets dark around 5 in ny), walked almost to the west village, and kate's friend kisime called to meet up with us. we were shopping somewhere near NYU i think. kisime and her boyfriend steve came to pick us up in a cab, and we went to the metropol in the west village for food and drinks. it was cool meeting them (kisime went to paideia with kate and erika, steve is a film producer). by the time we got back to queens, erika and jonathan had gone to bed, which was too bad. also, i had wanted to meet up with yitz monday night sometime, but it didn't work out. he had gotten tired anyway (after sleeping only about 3 hours on the ambulance shift the night before) so it wasn't really ideal to hang out late. tuesday, we lazily got packed up, had some indian food for lunch, and headed to laguardia around 2. got home to ATL and were picked up by jim at king-memorial marta to go to family dinner.
a tiring (for both of us) but like totally awesome trip....
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