"The key to marathon training is to sign up for as many NYRR races possible."

"The key to marathon training is to sign up for as many NYRR races possible." - Fellow colleague from the office.

WTF? Sounds about right though. So I told a few select individuals that I am doing the half marathon in October. Most responses I get is "Great!...How far is that again?" And I have to tell them it's 13.1 miles. Then they have this blank stare look - and they typically respond with "Wow, that's far! You're crazy! Good luck!" Oh yea, and most of the people I work with are computer nerds, so most are unathletic or are like me and aspire at post-college time to be the hard-core athlete we never were as a child because we were too busy studying! :)

Anyways, one of my colleagues Sal did the NYC marathon a few years ago. He looks like he's in shape and knew what he was doing, so I asked him for any tips. He said to sign up for as many races possible.

SoIdidthat.

As it turns out my work sponsors some races held in Central Park, and there was one on Sunday, 4/29. I love my job.

So I had a really hot date on Saturday night and before I left for it, I tried to be a good aspiring runner - atleast mentally and check the "gun time". For those of you non-runners, I found out that's what they call the start time for the race - GUN TIME is at...get this...are you ready? 8:30am!!!!!!!! That's a date killer. I was a little late to the race in the AM. I was a little concerned I would not find it. No worries. I discovered that there is a cult of runners in NYC who LOVE to run on Sunday mornings. It was like a beehive of runners all anxious for the race and the season to start. Must have been several thousand people.

Good thing I live so freakin close to the Park.

So how did I do? I reached my goal which was not to collapse and die before the finish line and do the entire 4 miles.

I finished my first ever 4 mile run!!! Before that I think I had only done a 5K for a corporate challege one year. Yay me! :)