Else what's a heaven for?

The race was not nearly as horrible as I expected and I went much faster than I'd been thinking in the past few days, so yaay!

The pre-starting line logistics could use some work, but then the gun went off and everyone cheered and we made our way to the starting line. I was pretty far back, so we walked through piles and piles of abandoned clothing. (Next year, I'm wearing a plastic bag until the start.) And then we walked past the Verrazano toll plaza and past a bunch of those really excellent red tourist buses that were decorated as if the passengers were handing glasses of water out the window. We got to the bridge and it was so excellent - I was grinning like a madwoman with excitement. The view was lovely and there was a boat in the water that was spraying blue and white streams, I assume for us. ( pace )

The cheering and entertainment were amazing. The spectators were awesome and some of them had clever signs. My personal cheer team didn't do so well, partially bc I was going a lot faster than anticipated, and partially bc we couldn't find each other. I connected with my mum right before the Queensboro bridge, mostly bc she jumped into the street: I felt great, but my brain function was so slow, I had to concentrate on scanning the crowd for my parents. I literally had to think for each person, "Is that someone I'm related to?" Most of the crowd was Hispanic! Also, the cheering in the Hispanic areas was way better than in the Jewish sections. Anyhow, the whole spectacle was so exciting, I barely listened to my book, although I switched to my own personal soundtrack for the final push.

I never did figure out why people were handing out paper towels and tissues, although I thought I'd need one, and I was very very grateful to the people who gave me a piece of orange and a banana. I had WAY too much sugar today. PowerBar handed out some sort of Step 2 gu in vanilla flavor the first time through Manhattan that did not suck. Poland Spring handed out sponges and I was happily sponging my face and chest when I remembered that chicks in white t-shirts shouldn't do that. Oops.

Running through Manhattan was particularly awesome as they shut down all of First Ave and we had space and y'know, running past all that Manhattan-ness. ( second half of the race ) Still, 4:34, or a 10:28 pace, handily beat all my expectations. I'm very pleased.

They wouldn't let us exit the Park until 77th St, which was probably a good thing bc it forced us to walk. Unfortunately, it took me fargin' 45 mins to walk from the finish to the natural history museum and then to my apt - that's 0.75mi. Oops. Even when I wasn't stuck in the crowd, I was sort of shuffling and moaning and making little noises every few steps. ( race aftermath, with family ) I ate hardly anything for dinner, even though I was hungry, bc somehow, I can't bring myself to eat. I'm actually hungry again. Grr.

I'm terrified of tmw. Which is actually going to be a very busy day, aside from recovery.