Perhaps it's the proliferation of marathoners starting to up their game.
Then we started chatting after that strange opening when the marathoners started whizzing by, led by the internationally famous Kenyan Solomon Kandie.
My time at 13 miles was 2 05, and as the first half marathoners peeled off, I saw a friend who was walking toward the second half-marathon starting line.
LAUREL GRAEBER For Children 'Almost 1K' (Saturday) Every budding marathoner has to start somewhere, and the Staten Island Children's Museum will help even crawlers and toddlers get on the road to fitness.The "Almost 1K" is a salute to the New York City Marathon, which also begins on Staten Island.
When it was finally time to ditch our layers of clothes (that made us look more like Occupy Wall Streeters than marathoners) for our 10 40 am start time, I told the butterflies in my stomach to take it easy.
And start chugging water like a marathoner, says Dr. Lee. "Staying well-hydrated with plain water means you'll pee out all the excess salt and bring down puffiness," she explains.
She didn't start thinking about trying the marathon until July when Lee Troop, coach of the Boulder Track Club and an Australian three-time Olympic marathoner, suggested it.
A serious athlete who surfs, rock-climbs and plays basketball, Feldman likens this stage of renovation to the high a marathoner experiences at about mile 23, when the runner can start to feel the finish line.
According to Women's Running, the six-time marathoner moved to Michigan from Damascus in the 1980s with her parents, but she didn't start running until 2012, when she signed up to run a 10k with her son.
That's why tennis players run around the court four or five times before a match and marathoners stride in front of the starting line.
