Displaced Beachbums

View of a marathon from a non-runner:

On the day of the New York City marathon, Logan  and I woke up at 4:30 to wish John good luck, we each gave him a hug & kiss goodbye, then it was straight back to bed until about 7:30 am.

The morning consisted of gathering breakfast from the local grocer near the hotel, watching the pre-marathon and start on TV, then out to shop at Lush, Macys, Ann Taylor and a few other small stores.

Unfortunately, we could only stay in our room until 1:00 pm so we stored our luggage with the bellstaff and walked to 2nd Avenue for a nice Italian lunch at Alfredo’s. At about 2:30 pm, we headed to the finish line at Central Park. We were able to find the “One Mile to Go” sign and decided to wait there to see FM. By this time it was a little before 3:00 and I was worried we missed him.  He’s consistent on his time at marathons but it’s so hard to know when he actually starts and we’d heard on TV that some people didn’t start until 30-40 minutes AFTER the starting sound at 10:10.

Although we never did see John run by (we must have missed him by a few minutes), Logan and I were totally entertained by the runners ~ many who had signs, lots waving their country flags, some were running in memory of loved ones, some were dressed up as well. I saw an Elvis, Banana-Man, Robin (From Batman) and Superman. Must have been all the leftover Halloween costumes.

Katie Holmes ran by looking fabulous as though she was out for a short jog.  She was wearing a NY FireDept cap and again, she was striking and certainly stood out in the crowd. I read in the newspaper later that Tom and Suri were waiting at the finish line.

Once we realized we’d missed John, Logan hailed us a cab and we headed back to the hotel to wait for him there.  It was a quick dinner at Houstons next door and off to the airport.

Too short a stay and a worrying week ahead ~ more on that in a bit.