Before this: NYCM2011: All over the press / NYCM2011: At the NYCM Press Conference / NYCM2011: FootLocker Run – Bart, Ryan, Bobby, Carrie, Steph, well… everyone was there!/ NYCM2011: Who wasn’t at the expo? / NYCM2011: Have you seen a Marathon Morning like this? /  NYCM2011: Get Ready, Set, GO! / NYCM2011: Beyond The Finish Line (finally the last post!)  

Sidenote: two pictures I just received from the finish line…

Ed / Trista

On Marathon Monday I woke up at 5 am, and I think it is because I was starving… Should I eat now or wait til the Fundraiser’s breakfast?? I decided to get 1 Boston creme and wait for the rest. The truth is, I felt FABULOUS. It was a gorgeous morning, I had half a day off at work and another marathon under my race belt, pun intended! I wasn’t sore, I could walk fine, but I still slapped on the flats, as I had been doing for the last 4 months.. and though I acquired many cute flats in the last months, they’re pretty boring to look at!

Naturally, I decided to enjoy my morning, and headed out for a walk in the park towards the Boat House, where the breakfast was. Monday morning at its peak, gorgeous park times five.

The Boathouse…you’ve either been there or seen it in a million movies.

As soon as I got there, I found lots of people I knew. Besides Sal (the Queens runner), my boss and one of the managers(love both!!!) were there! Shocker! Toby Tanser was there, obviously. And lots of people I had met a lunches or races (because it seems like that is all I do!). I think I knew 80% of the room, and after I said all the hellos, and how was yesterday? I sat, ate a lot of carbs, and was ready to listen!

Mary and Ed, they were sitting on the table right ahead of us.

Richard talked first, and introduced Mary. She was fabulous as always and told us how we had raised 33.4 millions and was hoping she would drive us to 35 by the end of the day. She talked about how this marathon was not about just personal goals anymore or competing; it was about reaching out, sharing, and goals greater than our own.

She even said that every Marathon Monday she goes to the Stock Exchange with the winners to ring the bell and she felt this was more important and how everybody in the room was a game changer and we were the forces driving this marathon in the best direction it could go. Working for a non-profit, it all made complete sense to us. And it definitely give us purpose. Team in Training had a team of 450 runners in the race, and some of them were running just because they wanted to fundraise. Yes, it’s super strange for us runners that people will run a marathon to raise funds instead of wanting to run, or needing the spot… Some of them might like it after the fact, and want to do it again, some will hate it but still do it because they are fighting to find a cure for cancer. Still, everybody wins. I was very moved all weekend to be a part of such an organization. Though I have never been a charity runner, I see how they have the most amazing time (and perks!!!) on the course, during training, after training, and they all tell you about the friends they’ve made for life. You know how it is when you run with people… you gotta love them!

Do you see they man front and center, sitting down? George Hirsch. Another person you want to meet, whatever you do, he’s been very influential and an all over impressive career!

Then Ed Norton spoke.

He didn’t run this past weekend but said how running NYC had been one of his peak experiences. He doubled on how he doesn’t call many things a “peak”. His master creating, Crowdise, had taken off last year and he was very inspired to share some anecdotes about his Masai runners (who he brought for the race last year), and how all this philanthropic work influenced his last years. He was great to listen to (and I get bored easily!!).

Then Anne Mahlum talked.

I am sure you’ve read of her before, or from Back on My Feet. As soon as she started talking, I knew exactly who she was as there had been a great article about her in Runners World a few years back (it’s here, read it if you can). Ten minutes later, she had me in tears. Short story, AND SPOILER ALERT IF YOU WANT TO READ THE ARTICLE (which is waaaay better written!) she had the perfect life as a kid, her dad was into gambling and all sorts of addictions, so they lost her house and her family got destroyed, she moved on, and started running, but kept running past some homeless guys. At some point she decided to create a running team to include them, leaving behind an amazing job for this organization that ended up giving a lot of purpose and value to her life. Back on my Feet now has chapters in several cities and will be coming to NYC next year. I vowed to help.

Susan Loken then talked.

She is an amazing master runner (who won the More Marathon and a few more, pun intended again!). She just started a team to fundraise for her charity and talked about how selecting those 20 people was so hard… she made it into an essay competition and kept talking about how amazing it is to see someone go from zero to the marathon, because they have a purpose. Amen.

Soon I was full of food and the speech part was over and it was a big chit-chat party.

My boss and another one of the managers at Team in Training, plus one of our Honored Team Mates who had just run the race the day before.

As he had raised over 55K, he became our biggest Fundraiser for the team too so they invited him to the festivities! They soon left, someone HAS to work, right??

Guess who? Carrie Tollefson.

I think I run into Carrie around 3 or 4 times every day this week. We are Facebook friends so we kept tags on each other. She’s really SO SO sweet! I want her to move to NYC!

Richard, Jeff McMahon (had to look him up!), and Anne from Back on My Feet

Ed and I, why do I look SO sleepy??

After a bit, we walked over to Tavern on the Green, Marathon Central for the week, where the Sales and the Medal Engraving, and the PRESS CONFERENCE was!

Carrie doing a little closing up, I was in there for like.. three minutes!! Will have to check all of her Daily Cooldown shows to see what made it in there!

We kept walking through the park and we saw them taking the finish line down… sad!

The line to get into the Marathon Pavillion was INSANE!!!! Luckily… I know everyone!! I headed in towards the press conference, after getting my New York Times to look at my name in there, as I do every year. Also, I never really look at it, but save them forever… pfffff.

I got some more coffee and food and was sitting in a table with the marathon photography directors… They wanted to check out the pictures in the Times and kept commenting on which photographer had a really good day 😉 They had around 500 to 600 paid photographers out there!! CRAZY, right? Well, the pictures are great, so it’s all worth it!

Soon, Mary comes in,then the winners show up. They were standing there, in a corner, so I went up and congratulated them. Both were really nice and they said it was a hard race, I agreed of course, not that I run it like they did! No time for pictures because they have to get on the press conference ASAP!

They were fabulous. The numbers Mary read (I have a copy somewhere) were all records for everything. But you know all aboutthat already. Soon after I headed off to work, where the crazy party really got started…!

All the previous links for the NYCM2011:

NYCM2011: All over the press / NYCM2011: At the NYCM Press Conference / NYCM2011: FootLocker Run – Bart, Ryan, Bobby, Carrie, Steph, well… everyone was there!/ NYCM2011: Who wasn’t at the expo? / NYCM2011: Have you seen a Marathon Morning like this? /  NYCM2011: Get Ready, Set, GO! / NYCM2011: Beyond The Finish Line (finally the last post!) / NYCM2011: Marathon Monday (Ed, the breakfast, Carrie, the press conference, etc.!) /