Marathon Baby

So, yesterday morning (Sat.), I headed in to the city to meet my teammates between 5:00 and 5:30 AM to Adopt-a-Mile of the Mens Olympic Marathon Trials in Central Park. Thanks to the good work of our captain, our mile included the finish line. Nice! We got to see the runners five times including the amazing finish. It was pretty fun, although a bit reminiscent of my other experience volunteering for NYRRC (not much direction, very early morning, hurry up and wait,...). The best thing was that I was with many of my MCNY teammates whom I haven't seen so much now that I'm not racing and training with them every week.
The runners were awesome and completely lived up to the hype of being the best field of American runners in quite some time (perhaps ever). We all made bets as to the winning time and the last place time. This turned out to be pretty entertaining, and three people correctly guessed 2:09 as the winning time (which is an Olympic Trials record). At the finish line I was quite near both Bill Rogers and Rod Stewart. And, of course, the awesome American marathoners! After the race three of us enjoyed a delicious brunch. I loved the company!
Today was Marathon Sunday. I'd planned to go in to watch & cheer, but Dan wanted to paint the deck, and I hadn't made proper plans to meet up with anyone else. Instead I stayed home and enjoyed the local NBC coverage while I did laundry and graded papers. I was screaming for Paula Radcliffe as she won. She just had a baby in January, so I am feeling confident about my hopes for running the NYC Marathon next November! Both the men's and women's races were exciting and close today. Very fun to watch. I also got to see Lance finish in an impressive 2:46 with his non-cycling 175 lb. frame. (Oh, it appears that the rumor I heard about him at yesterday's Trials is true!)
So, Baby got to experience two marathons in two days, though not as a participant. I withdrew my entry on Tuesday to today's race... probably could have done that a lot sooner... Hopefully in 2008 Baby will enjoy cheering for me!