Race Report

New York City Marathon

Sunday, November 5, 2000

PRE-RACE:   

This is where the REAL story of my NYCM00 adventure can be found. We left Charlotte at 6pm on Thursday night and traveled all night in a rented van, my son Greg and I sharing driving duties. We arrived in Liberty City, NJ by dawn’s early light on Friday morning. Because Bree, my new daughter-in-law, had never been to the Big Apple, we treated her to all the sights  - the boat ride to the Statue of Liberty, the long climb up the narrow steps to the crown, the introduction to traffic in Gotham, the search for a place to park the van, the discovery of the $12 hamburger for lunch, and the crowds that fill every square inch of the sidewalks around Times Square. By the time we joined Ken and Ellen Weissman, David Campbell, Harriet Kang, and Harriet’s brother and sister-in-law for dinner in Chelsea, Bree was both exhausted and overwhelmed! The evening encounter was wonderful and we caught the subway back to our hotel on 47^th street. It was a “budget hotel” – the Portland Square. It met all of my criteria. Safe, reasonably priced (for Manhattan), just a half block from Times Square, and a great little deli right across the street. However, if you talk to the ladies, you may find it was NOT very fancy… 

Early Saturday morning I made the walk down to Penn Station to meet Ross and Jennifer, good friends of my son Greg and his wife Bree. They had driven in from Charlotte on Friday and were staying with friends over in Jersey. Ross would be running his first marathon on Sunday. The ladies headed up Fifth Avenue to explore shopping possibilities while the guys trekked over to the expo with a side trip into Central Park to check out the finish line preparation. That afternoon we all joined Penguins and Deads at Padrones in the Upper East Side for the encounter so well organized by Daniel Wellner. Good food and good company for a couple of hours then we headed back to the hotel, a route that included window shopping along the way. Ross and I discussed plans for marathon day and I briefed Greg on his job – a tougher one than running the marathon. He was to guide the three wives to meet us at miles 3, 8, 16, and 21. It would certainly be easier to run 26.2 miles.

The Portland Square - don't tell anybody what a deal it is!

Right across 47th Street from the Hotel