On to the big one

Written on Nov 2nd.

Writing this post from 38,000 feet above Newfoundland on my brand new iPad mini.......
About 48 hours from now, I hopefully will be basking in the glory of having completed the New York marathon, but like all 48,000 of us due to run this Sunday, it has been a week fraught with uncertainty.
You would have to have been trekking in Amazonia to have remained unaware of why this week. Hurricane Sandy, the so-called "once in a lifetime" natural disaster, has punched coastal New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area square on the nose. Some of us have been tracking the storm and the devastation that followed it almost as keenly as those poor souls who found themselves trapped in its path. Like many runners coming in from overseas to run the "world's greatest race", I am really not sure what to expect in terms of disruption to plans, inconvenience, and the reception given to us by a city that desperately needs to repair itself.
In the end apparently the New York Road Runners Club left it to Mayor Bloomberg, and he pushed the "go" button on Wednesday.
With much of lower Manhattan suffering worst from the flooding, the transport network there remains suspended, including the Staten Island ferry which was due to ferry me and thousands of others to the start. A decision was taken  late Thursday UK time to bus us all over from midtown, and I have managed to switch from a small room in a very expensive hotel downtown, to a slightly more expensive one just off Times Square. The consolation is that I will be nearer the number pick up point, the finish itself and Penn Station from where I will be leaving for Washington DC on Monday.
I think I will find it an even more interesting experience. Lets hope we at least don't get booed in all five boroughs.

Back to running, last weekend I did something that I have been meaning to do for months, and that is run in my first Parkrun.
Parkruns are a fantastic concept and, after some eight years, can now lay claim to being a sort of global popular movement, with 5 km timed runs now being available in locations worldwide every Saturday morning. Staffed by volunteers, they are totally free, although there is a moral obligation to offer some of your own time to help if you become a regular. And there are plenty of regulars. At the event I went to in Milton Keynes, not only were there 280 or so runners on a freezing Saturday at 9 am, there were several there sporting t-shirts proudly showing they had run more than 50 of them, or even 100!

Probably a little unwisely, I did treat it as a race, and logged a time of 22:27 which at around 7:15 per mile is a pace I have not run at for about 6 years! Using the arcane factoring up method, this running pace indicates a potential for a 3:40 marathon (and probably a return to the type of injuries that plagued me 20 years ago when I was a "proper" runner).

Don't go betting on me to do THAT this weekend, but I do have a sneaky feeling I can beat the 4:12:31 from this year's London marathon by a few minutes, if I stay healthy.

.....and then we landed, I turned my phone on and the first message said:

"Sorry to hear it's cancelled you must be gutted".


Evolved to run. Born to run. Older, greyer, still running. Follow @Nariokotomeboy