New York – Round 2?

Over a week ago I’ve got a email newsletter from NYRR with the email subject of ‘ The Virtual Marathon is back ‘ .

This is the second year that NYRR offers this option to get into next year’s marathon.

They have 500 spots for the virtual race, it’s cost $150, and you’ll need to run a marathon between the 31st of October and 3rd of November to get your guaranteed 2020 spot.

Hmmmm…. I wasn’t really sure if I want to apply for it or not. I mean I already ran the race back in 2017. But I LOVE New York , I loved living / working there in 2010, then when we went back with Luke in 2017 it was an awesome holiday. Do I really need this ?

I mean after Boston I said I won’t ever want to see a marathon start line ever again.

But no matter how much I love swimming and cycling, and do want to concentrate on triathlons more, I always be a runner. I love running, I love the freedom, and just love getting the miles in. You know all that I’m far from being fast, but I still do love running. Running helps me to clear my head and just to concentrate on myself. Think about all that crazy weird things, and just simply to get my ‘me time’. I’ve met so many amazing people all thanks to my 6 Star journey and I’m so grateful for that.

The virtual race registration went live this past Wednesday at 5pm UK time ( 12pm NY time) , I thought I’ll give it a try. I mean I really have nothing to lose. I don’t have any pressure on me to get a spot, if I get in I’ll be happy, if I wont get in I wont be upset.

This was the website for the sign up https://www.nyrr.org/races/tcsnewyorkcitymarathonvirtual262m

After filling out my information, and selecting the correct option, filled out the Strava questionnaire , NYRR server died.

This happened at 17.08pm, so I really thought I’m out. Because lets be clear 500 spots are really not many. Probably 1000s of people tried to register and the website just kept crashing.

At the end I’ve got my confrontation at 17.15pm. I was IN.

My Strava got updated straight away, and it showing my upcoming challenge.

A friend of mine ( Robert ), keeps calling me the MacGyver of the race registrations. I’ve registered to Boston in 20 seconds after the applications opened, and now I managed to get one of the virtual spots for NY.

What’s next? Ohh I just need to run a marathon, to get my spot for New York. You’d say ohh it can’t be that hard for you, you already done 6 marathons. Yes, that’s correct. But I never in my life run 26.2 miles not during a race. So now the planning starts. Where can I run this distance? One thing for sure, I definitely wont run it on the track, I can’t handle 105 laps .

I mean I’ll need refreshments, some support would be good too, or at least just someone there to tell me to keep going. I NEED something flat ! Got a suggestion that I should ask my fellow Savage team mates if they fancy running with me a few miles, at least I won’t be alone and the time would go quicker. Just a casual Saturday morning run. Will see 🙂

So I’m half way in New York 2020, which will be the 50th New York marathon. Wow. I do hope that they will have a nice medal. I’m the biggest sucker of the fancy medals.

So now I’ll have London in April 2020 and hopefully New York in November 2020. World marathon majors round 2, here I come , haha.

Going back to New York alone, will be hard. But when I lived there I was also alone, and I managed. So I should be all okey. The only hard part is not having anyone cheer me on during the race in person. But life’s not always easy, so I’ll need to tackle this.

Love,

Gabi xxx