ING New York City Marathon 2010

 The Starting line on the Verrrazano-Narrows Bridge.

 Fall colors through Central Park

 Band playing in Brooklyn

 Waterstop through Williamsburg

In the Fall of 2001 I met a gal at my club who loved to run. I told her of my plans to have a baby and that I'd be back to run with her in about 10 months.  She thought "good luck!"  She didn't know my pregnancies always go so according to my plan and sure enough I was back just when I said, ready to run!  Since then she has trained with me through 9 marathons and one of my best training partners in my quest for Ironman in 2005.  We have such a good time running and talking about life, kids, work, trips and everything else from A to Z. Back in Jan of this year she talked me into running in a half marathon with hopes to qualify for the NYC marathon November 7th.  It's the world's largest marathon and very hard to get into.  You must either qualify through a half marathon or try your luck with the lottery.  Getting into the NYC marathon is much harder than getting into Boston because the qualifying times are much faster. 1:37 for my age, and we finished it in 1:35:59!  61 seconds to spare. That's a 7:19 pace for 13.1 miles.  She stayed right with me and didn't let me slow down when I said I wanted to.

The funniest thing....although this picture is hard to tell, is that our registration numbers are ONE digit apart!  We didn't even put down the same finishing time and signed up about 10 days apart!  This put us in the same wave and corral at the start.

Several other runners from our club qualified to get in or did it for charity.The first night we got into New York the group of 6 couples and myself that were all staying at the same Marriott, met for dinner in Times Square.  Why we didn't snap a picture of the 8 of us that were running is beyond me. 

The EXPO was amazing! We were in there for 2 hours shopping around and getting free goods.  This marathon by far gave out more swag (merchandise and freebies) to runners than any other one I've done. This is a life size map of the course which started on Staten Island ended in Central Park.

Afterwards we toured around the city.  We walked A LOT!  By the end of the eve our feet were SORE.  Not good before running 26.2 miles

Tim, Cyndee's hubby was an excellent tour guide!  The 3 of us had done several training runs together and get along very well.  Tim was so excited about good food.  This gyro was one example of that.  He was raving so much that Cyndee and I had to have once for lunch!

The morning of the race we woke at 5 a.m. and loaded on the marathon bus that was right across the street from out hotel!  It was cold cold and windy!  Hard to keep warm until we found this spot in the sun.

We were lucky enough to run together from mile 8-16 with all the thousands of runners around us!  I decided at the starting line that I wanted to see if I could best my  PR of 3:27 back in 2005, although that is not what my training had been set up for.  I wasn't doing fast long runs or really a lot of speed work. But I figured "what the heck, I'll give it a try".   I was on track with a 3:22 finish at mile 16 if I could keep that same pace.  Well a tummy cramp potty stop but an end to that and then the cold I'd been fighting and still had put the kabosh on everything.  My legs felt okay but I couldn't breath.  So I said, Stacey Lake...be  happy with the 3:42", which was better than my last best of 3:43 in AZ and not bad for not training for a faster time.
At the end of a marathon I always get really emotional.  Verclempt and all.  I found Cyndee who was struggling to catch her breathe since her asthma kicked in.  She crossed 2 min a head of me.  It was then a prison march out of the finish area.  They herd us through like cattle to our awaiting UPS trucks for our checked bags with dry clothes and cameras in them. I wanted to stretch sooo bad but they wouldn't let us sit down or stop. That was the hardest part and our van was waaaay at the end.  We were number 6,000 out of 43,000 and they started backwards!

This is a better shot of our numbers.

Wrapped up in our foils we were much warmer and ready to head to the hotel via the subway.  The New Yorkers were sooo nice.  They all gave up their seats and went on about how they
"could never do it!"

My cousin Rich Skeen and his darling family came in to meet me on the Upper West Side for a FABULOUS dinner at a Vietnamese Restaurant.  The food was heaven.  Steamed spinach, yes!!!  He and Jessica have the cutest kids. I was in love with little Asher.  So much reminding me of Mr. Brody! We walked a lot that evening and I felt just fine! I love exploring a new city and don't care to tire out my legs to do so.  Rich was a great tour guide of the surrounding area.

I don't know why but I look really short in this picture. I think I was standing in a hole!!

Spent the next day in Central Park and walking all around. It felt good to stretch our legs.  And we really did a ton more walking.  I was crazy about these roasted nuts. I think I

This pic was from the first night I got in while I was waiting for the others.  I went out exploring and these officers were part of the marathon escort for the pros at the start.  They were hob nobbing with several marathoners. I told Todd I think one of them put his hand near my butt!