Today marks 1 month until the New York City Marathon!
That means 1 more long run, lots of time spent with my foam roller, endlessly refilling my water bottle to stay hydrated and of course…some final fundraising for North Shore Animal League!
Over the summer I reached my initial fundraising goal of $3,000 (THANK YOU!) and have re-adjusted my goal to try to raise an additional $1,000 over the next month leading up to the race!
As a reader of my blog or follower of mine on social media I’m sure you know how much Madison means to me. Jason and I honestly can not imagine our lives without her and I’m honored to be running my 5th marathon, and first New York City Marathon, to help all the amazing pets at North Shore Animal League find their forever homes!
I am touched that so many of you have made a donation towards my fundraising and I can’t thank you enough for your support!
If you haven’t done so already, please take a moment to visit my personal fundraising page to learn more about North Shore Animal League and why I chose to run with Team Animal League for the New York City Marathon!
PERSONAL FUNDRAISING PAGE:
http://takeaction.animalleague.org/goto/DanielleNardi
Thank you so much for your support! – Danielle & Madison
And in case you missed it you can also read about my visit to North Shore Animal League’s facility in Port Washington, New York (the town over from where I used to live!) HERE!
P.S. – if you are also running the New York City Marathon or plan on spectating, please let me know! I’d love to coordinate seeing as many people as possible as I make my way through 26.2 miles of New York City! (And spectators, I wouldn’t say no to some snacks along the way!)
Live, Run, Grow 
Woohoo! Congrats on meeting your fundraising goal! That is AWESOME, and it must be amazing to run for a cause that means so much to you. Also…can’t believe it’s only one month away! How freakin’ fast did the time go?!
I know, I feel like I kept thinking I had plenty of time to train and now I’m like, “shoot, I only have 1 more long run!”
I already told you lady, I’m bringing bagels! You need to place your order!
And ummm, yeah, you’ll find me in Queens because I’m lazy and the 7 train is evil lol
Onion with cream cheese! (is that terrible to eat mid-marathon??!)
I have no idea! But only one way to find out! lol
Congrats on meeting your goal. Love that you are running for animals, since I am also attached to my little pooch Lulu! Good luck with your last long runs and the taper. I am a week before you with MCM and starting to get nervous!
Thanks Pam, I’m happy that I chose to run for North Shore Animal League too, it’s exciting to know I’m raising money and running for all these amazing animals!
Good luck with your MCM training, I had hoped to try to come down and cheer/ spectate since I loved running the race so much last year, but I ended up deciding to volunteer at the Cape Cod Marathon that weekend – I’ll be tracking you though!
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Congrats on meeting your fundraising goal. I’ll be running NYC for the first time as well (this will be my second marathon, but feels like my first again)
Awesome, hope your training is going well!
You’re so lucky to get to run that race. You’ll crush it!
Thanks Scott! Looking forward to it : )
Have a great last month of training! You’re almost there!
Thanks Karla!
P.S. – any tips, thoughts, etc. about running NYCM would be much appreciated! All the logistics of the race (transportation, starting area, etc.) seem overwhelming!
It’s probably the most difficult race start to get to logistically. Makes WDW Marathon look like a breeze! I’ve done the bus and the ferry. I prefer the ferry. It’s really cool to see Manhattan disappear behind you and gets me really excited. Give yourself plenty of time to A) Get to the starting village B) Check your bag if you’re checking C) Get into your corral. They’re strict about corral closures and if you miss it, you’re in the last one. Almost happened to me in 2010. Even if it’s going to be a warm day, bring REALLY warm clothes to the start. The start area and bridge can be REALLY windy and much colder than Manhattan. You might even want a hat or ear warmers to start the race with and toss once you get warm. If you can get away without checking a bag and have Jason or a friend meet you with warm clothes, do it!! It will make the start and finish MUCH easier. Without a bag, you can exit the park earlier. With a bag, you get to do what I call the 1-mile post-finish “death march” to bag check. No joke, it can take up to an hour if your bag truck is at the end of the line. With just a heat sheet and bag of snacks, your body temp plummets, your strength is gone, and it’s a rough, rough walk through a sea of 50,000 runners. That’s my best advice I can think of off the top of my head. But seriously, just tweet/e-mail/etc me any time with any specific questions!!
Oh, and from a racing point of view, this is one race where you DEF want to go out slowly. The biggest hill aka bridge, is mile one, but your adrenaline is kicking and most people run it way too fast, then pay dearly when they hit another “hill’ at mile 15: the Queensboro bridge. You want to get to that bridge feeling really good. Right after the bridge are the biggest crowds of the race. Again, resist the urge to surge when you hear them cheering, because once the crowds thin out, you hit a small climb into Mile 20. And at Mile 23 is another big hill that catches a lot of runners by surprise. It’s about a mile long climb and can be really rough if you’re not ready for it. Then you enter CP and the rolling hills. The 2nd half of the NYC course is definitely tougher than the first, so save plenty of juice for it!
Oh my goodness, this is all soooooo helpful I can’t even tell you! Honestly, I keep searching for NYCM recaps just to read about the pre-race logistics stuff since for some reason that part has me the most nervous.
I’m really worried about trying to meet up with my friends at the starting area (since we’re not on the same transportation) – any suggestions? And how is cell service usually? I’m worried about not being able to use phones/ texts to meet them if the service isn’t great with that many people around!
I’ve never had a problem with cell service at the start, so hopefully you won’t either. Def pick a pre-determined meeting place in one of the colored start villages, but you should be fine!