23 Going On 60: NYC: Day 4 (pt. 2 The NYC Marathon)

Although Sunday morning was kind of a comedy of errors (the phone dying, we couldn't find a cab, we finally found a cab but then a wreck held us up for awhile) but we ended up arriving at Central Park at almost the perfect time. Since our hotel was just a few blocks down from Columbus Circle we were able to walk down and find a great spot between mile 25 and 26. There were a ton of people lining the course, but we were able to find a pretty good spot.

It was so inspiring to see all of the runners re-enter Central Park (the course takes them Central Park at an earlier point in the race), because they knew they were at the end. Runners were cheering, crying, filming with their iPhones. It was pretty incredible, and definitely inspired me to run another marathon this spring. I hardly ever get the chance to be a spectator at running events, and I loved being able to give the runners high 5's and tell them that they were almost there. I know it is annoying for runners to hear "you're almost there!" at mile 17 or 18 of a race, but these folks really were almost there.

I was hoping to catch a glimpse of just one of the many celebrities who were running the race - Al Roker, Meredith Vieria, Jared from Subway, Bobby Flay, that tennis player

who had a bet with Andy Roddick, Edison Pena or the Fat Cyclist, but alas I didn't see any of them. However, we did manage to catch a glimpse of Mr. David in the crowd! The stream of runners never thinned out the entire time we were watching, so it would have been pretty easy to miss him. We spotted him right at the entrance to the park and yelled for him but he didn't see us. Chad took off running into the park (I have never seen him run so fast) and he ran right up the barricade and bellowed out "DAD!!!!" and Mr. David turned and saw him. It was beautiful! Mr. David finished strong and then got swallowed up among all of the finishers in the finishers area.

Chad, Mrs. Suzy and I headed back to the hotel and made a pit stop at Starbucks. It was cool outside, but it was a really beautiful day. The streets were crowded with proud finishers and spectators and New Yorkers and tourists - it was pretty amazing to be a small part of something as huge as the NYC marathon.