On Nov 2, 2003, Amie and 33,000 others completed the NYC Marathon.
	I am finished with the NYC Marathon! 26.2 miles. Except for the pain, it was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of me about an hour after, when I finally got to the Family Meeting area where Niles was to meet me. Below is the account of the race weekend that I sent the next day. Check out my post-race thoughts after one of the hardest and most rewarding things i've ever accomplished. -amie

Niles and I went to the city on Saturday and had lunch with his dad. There were SO many extra people in the city (30,000 runners. 10,000 were international, and 15,000 were US from outside of NYC. If each runner who came to the city brought 1-3 people with them, you are talking about 75-100,000 EXTRA people in Manhattan). Our friends from Chapel Hill (Lindsay and Mike) were in town so they went with us to the Pasta Party in Central Park. The chef from Tavern on the Green cooks 3 kinds of pasta for about 20,000 people. It was pretty neat. Then I went to bed (at 9) and niles and the friends went to the village.

Sunday I spent most of the morning in line for the bus. When the cannon went off, we could see the competitive men on the bridge (we were on Staten Island) so all the rest of us cheered for them. About 15 minutes later, I found my way to the start line. Thanks to the chip, it records my start time as well as my finish time so you can figure out exactly how long it took you to run. I guess P Diddy started about 20 seconds ahead of me, and finished 45 minutes before I did, so I never saw him.

The bridge is quiet because it’s a high security area – the police boats are guarding the water. The only cheering on the bridge are the few volunteers. You hit the end of the bridge at miles two and turn onto the streets of Brooklyn. There were tons of people lining the 12 miles of Brooklyn that we ran through. They are cheering and banging on trash cans and pots and pans and holding up signs. The firehouses had their trucks out and the guys would be in the basket swung out over the street. They usually had a sign hanging cheering on one of their firemen who was running. One fire truck sign said “Go AMY! Go MEGAN!” Considering that 23 of the 11,000 NYFD are women, my guess was they were friends, spouses or sisters of the guys in that house. Queens was only a couple miles on the course, but the Queensboro bridge was well over a mile long. That’s over half mile of the up part of the bridge. And we were on the under-part of the bridge so it was like being in a tunnel. When we came out of the tunnel into Manhattan it was like funning through a tunnel onto a basketball court or football stadium. We were on 1st ave with an 80 block straight shot before we left Manhattan, and both sides of the street the whole way were packed. And this was over 3 hours after the race had started. The winners were already finished. And when we got to 5th avenue and in Central park, the crowd was nuts, as we got closer and closer. Pretty exciting the whole way.

I felt pretty good on the run. Around mile 8 my hip started hurting (a problem I have been having). They had told us to that taking Advil (or anti-inflammatory) and running this distance can cause you serious kidney problems. So I ran with just Tylenol and Bayer Back and body – they have never done anything for me other that stop headaches. I think I would have been a lot better with my Advil. As it weas, I had to stop every mile after mile 9 and stretch it for a minute do I could keep going. Also, there was supposed to be water at the start. Do I took one Gatorade with me that I drank by 7. I didn’t get to the start until 9 and they were out of water! So I didn’t have the recommended 2 glasses of water 2 hours before and 2 glasses 1 hour before. I had nothing. Oh well.

I am happy with my time and happy with the day and happy that I did it.

Thanks to everyone who called. I was pretty tired so I apologize to those I didn’t call back!

Amie E Becton 28F

Net Time (ACTUAL) 10K (ACTUAL) Half (ACTUAL) 20M (ACTUAL)

4:41:16 58:19 2:10:33 3:28:58

Number Place Gender place age place

45502 22407 6126 1740

PS – Excuse the grammar etc…I am still a bit tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!