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11/06/2005: "I did it again."

It was a calm warm fall day, perfect marathon viewing weather, a little too warm for runners, and I ran my favorite race again. This was my 6th New York City Marathon, and it still doesn't get any easier. Out of 8 marathons I ran, maybe twice I had fairly comfortable race to the finish. Other times were all pretty tough. Today I had another horrible race. Pretty much each marathon felt like the worst race ever. Today's race was definitely another one. I started out too fast feeling too great, and I tanked very early- by mile 20 I was significantly slowing down. By mile 22 I was almost getting cramps in my legs and had to walk for a minute. But I didn't want to drag my feet in front of my teammates' cheering section at mile 24, and managed to recover somewhat. The result wasn't still not so horrible, almost exactly same time as last year, 3 hours and 22 minutes. Finishing a marathon is often a great accomplishment and defeat at the same time, since it feels so bad toward the end. But it makes me want to challenge again. I think I can still run a better race (if I had more time to do more miles in my training!). And it is an incredible experience running through 5 boroughs cheered by all those people! I may quit running this race some day, but not just yet.