Report by Eileen:

Thanks to the jetlag and a terrible bed in my NY apartment I was up like a lamb at 6am ready to catch the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan at 7.30am to pick up my number for a 9.40am start. The ferry ride across was a nice wee start to the day and a lovely clear morning meant the runners were all sitting outside taking in the sights of downtown NYC, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty en route. Once of the ferry I headed straight for the registration tent to get my number and scoffed at my predicted “8.59” pace that was listed on my number. Obviously I had taken the details of your last race literally and put down my 5km time from RunHer. So this meant I was banded in with the 8 min milers with each pace having a different coloured number and starting figure. I swanned around quite smugly then at the start with my 8 min mile pace while deep down feeling rather silly and wondering who was I kidding ….

After many trips to the lovely portaloos then we were off and quite quickly the rest of my 8 min mile buddies were a distant memory. The first mile or so was quite pleasant with a few rolling hills and a great deal of US crowd support along the way. They always sound much more pro at the enthusiastic shouts from the sidelines than we do. Are Americas taught this in school or something? Actually I suppose they are, maybe it stems back to the cheerleaders being the most popular at school and this is the Joe Blogs way of proving they too can cheer….Our “well done” shouts seem a bit pitiful in comparison to their “I’m proud of you runners” and “Wow, you guys are awesome”. One young boy of about 10 stole the show though with “My Gawwddd, you guys could run track!” A far cry from the usual Belfast youngsters witticisms of “Hurry up fatty” or “Look at the size of her ass” and so on …

My first 2 miles were perhaps a wee bit too quick with both in the 9.45 per mile region. Mile 2 to 3 was 8.50 but this mile did go through an industrial estate which was bleak and here after called “Duncrue”. I think the Garmin went on the blink briefly at this point, probably in despair of the boring route which in hindsight explains the 8.50 time. Around about this time the sun had well and truly risen and temperatures were in the mid to high 20s. Luckily there were water stations every 2 miles so I was picking up 2 cups at a time, one for over me and one to drink. At about 4 miles then we saw the lead runners fly by and then up to 6.5 had the pleasure of watching everyone double back on us. According to my Garmin I hit mile 7 in 1h05 which is damn good going but I reckon 2 mins of that were lost somewhere along the way thanks to the Auto Pause. I was very glad to reach the turn in the road at 6.5. A very nasty hill at 7 miles almost finished me off, but worst was the thought that I would be visiting Duncrue again in a few short miles. Not a welcoming prospect! This was a definite disadvantage of an out and back course – realising pretty quickly on the way out that this was not a place I wanted to see twice!

I lost the will to live briefly at 11 miles in Duncrue but managed to talk myself round and focus on picking off some girl in pink who had been teasing me with her overtaking ways for some time now. At this point I also found myself running beside a woman with the most bizarre running style. She resembled how you would run if you were doing an exaggerated Slow-Mo type move. I also found myself beside another woman, now known in my head as “Mr Burns”, as she held her hands out in a pandering sort of way which surely could not have been a good running technique. At mile 5-6, I was beside some guy who actually didn’t lift his feet of the ground but just scraped them along, he must grow through a fair few pairs of runners each year! Least they all had a good effect on me in that I was forced to pass them as they were so bloody annoying to run beside!

So, the chemicals bros then came on at 12.5 miles and I was away, picking off about 15 people to the finish line and completing in 2hrs 15 mins and 17 secs. Under a minute then slower than Dublin. A crappy oversized cotton t-shirt, apple and a dry bagel in arm and I was back on the ferry and outta there! Russell Taylor in “The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner” makes a very scathing remark about the start of the NY marathon on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and getting the hell away from Staten Island, this thought was rolling around my mind quite a bit throughout the joyous Duncrue …