The Language of the Maratón

Saturday morning was sunny and beautiful.

We sat in bed for a while devouring every marathon story in every newspaper we could find. The same three messages were everywhere:

1. runners understood why it was cancelled
2. runners were (furious, upset, angry, overwhelmed etc) about the timing of the announcement
3. runners were even more (furious, upset, angry etc) that they had been told to come and then the decision was reversed.

We read stories about people who overcame huge odds to get there.

One woman was coming from Italy but there were problems with her flight. So she flew from Italy to Hong Kong and then to New York just to get there on time. She found out as soon as she landed in New York.

One group of runners from Europe had spent $30,000 to get there. They found out at the Expo that they should have stayed home.

We dressed and headed out. We figured we might as well enjoy our day in New York City. We strolled around exploring the famous spots. Some we had seen together in January - others we discovered for the first time.

Look who was in town for the race? Apparently he was NOT happy to find out their rules against running with sharp objects. 

Our midmorning snack was a muffin (or in my case a piece of baklava) and some coffee.

Notice Ebenezer's Eyelash Extension across the street? 

We made our way to the New York Public Library where Doug was supposed to join thousands of runners at 5:30am on Sunday morning. We talked about how crazy that would have been - up to a thousand busses were going to be needed to shuttle everyone. How much fun would it have been to watch that orchestration? 

We settled on a photo at the base of one of the huge pillars. Notice his orange gloves? The name of each of the five boroughs the race goes through are written on the fingers. A fun little souvenir from the Expo the day before. 

We're getting much better at the whole aim the camera and take a picture trick. 

We went for lunch. I was wearing my Medtronic jacket and was approached by a Spanish-speaking runner. He pulled out his Medtronic pump. I pulled out mine. We grinned. He explained that he was from Spain and was there with a group of 15 runners - all of whom have Type 1 diabetes. They came with a support crew of 15 others. They were part of a study of how long-distance running affects blood sugar. They were, of course, supposed to run the marathon. 

We walked to Rockefeller Centre which was all set up at Democracy Square in preparation for the November 6th election. 

A map of the US painted on the ice and American flags flying everywhere. Methinks there is an election going on. 

I met one of the candidates. He was so charming that I brought him back to my hotel. Was that wrong? 

We went to the Apple Store which had a line up down the street to get in. 

Apparently this little gadget is quite popular at the moment. 

We played with puppets. 

We marvelled at the size of candy bars in the US. 

If I ate these two peanut butter cups I would need to take 40 units of insulin to cover the 240 carbs in it. I get kinda panicky when I take more than 10 units at a time... 

We walked through Macy's, Times Square and the Art Brown Pen shop that we love. 

Everywhere we went we saw runners. Many wearing their orange race shirts. Every runner seemed in tune with every other runner. In a town that has drawn together because of Sandy, I felt like the runners were developing their own special bond. Marathon sounds a lot like maratón which sounds a lot like maratona. Mention the word and people responded with sad eyes as they pointed to themselves or the person they were with. 

Nobody was happy but, like it or not, we were in this together.