We Did It!

Saturday - Marathon Eve.
One last meal of pasta. At this point I had been eating pasta for the past 3 days mixed with the right balance of protein and fat. Either way, I’m done with the pasta. The dinner took place at the marathon eve pasta dinner at Tavern on the Green. This is always hectic but I’m amazed at how organized they are in managing to feed over 15,000 runners. The dinner is great tradition, and I think it really adds to the marathon experience. Plus, you get a sneak peek at the marathon finish line where the 43,000 runners will pass through the next day. Three other runners along with friends and family joined me for the dinner.

Staten Island
Once we finished our meal, we were shuttled over to Staten Island. We stayed the night at the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island that was short drive to start line. Well, a short drive with no traffic. After checking in we had about an hour before we had to meet back downstairs to meet some of the other team members and take part in a Maasai ceremony.

The Ceremony
What took place was part of a traditional Maasai ceremony that the Maasai perform before becoming a warrior. In our case this was a ceremony for us to become warriors before the run. Samson the president of the trust, Sunte and Parashi entered the room dressed in their Shukka’s, beautiful Maasai jewelry (more than I had seen them wear before) and adorned with red paint down the side of their faces. I knew these guys were warriors but now they really looked liked warriors. Each came in and began applying the same face paint to each of the runners.

After applying the paint to each one of the runners Samson stood before us and described the ceremony that we were about to take part in. He explained that traditionally, the Maasai would have to go out and kill a lion to become a warrior but that is no longer practiced. Before beginning, Samson had to make an unfortunate announcement that he would not be able to run with us tomorrow. He had visited a doctor in the city that confirmed he had a stress fracture in one of his legs due to over training. It was a sad moment for the team but he said he would run with us in spirit.

The ceremony began with Samson, Paraishi and Sunte leading us in a series of chants and some singing. We were instructed to call back with our own chants. At one point, we all knelt down in a circle around Sunte as Samson walked around to each of us with a clay carafe with palm fronds extending out from it. The carafe was filled with milk and water, and as he chanted, he lightly splashed us with the milk in and water. Parashi followed behind him with some oil, which he rubbed on our foreheads. The oil symbolized the fat from a sheep they would normally slaughter during the traditional ceremony. The ceremony preceded with more chanting, and at one point all the runners getting in a line in a warrior-like stance with shield in one hand and spear in the other and letting out a series of grunting noises followed by a charge.

The ceremony ended with very heartfelt words from Samson, Parashi, Sunte, Luca and Edward. Samson expressed his sincere gratitude for all the hard work done by all the runners to help raise money and awareness for the Maasai community. Luca followed by expressing his gratitude and mentioned the growing list of key accomplishments of the trust that would not be possible without the help of others.

Feeling energized, empowered and ready to run, we all left that room as Maasai warriors ready to take on the city streets in the morning.

Race Day
The crowds were amazing, louder than I remembered. There were even more bands playing along the way. From marching bands to indie rock bands in Williamsburg to hip hop in the Bronx and Harlem, seeing, feeling and hearing the different cultures from each borough was incredible. All cheering for a bunch of runners!

I’m not sure if it is because I became a Maasai warrior in that hotel conference room the night before, the cheers and support of the crowd, or deeper reasons but I ran faster and harder than I’ve ever run in my life. There were groups at a few cheering stations that erupted as I went by at mile 8, 18, 23 and 25. The cheers and words of encouragement really do make a big difference. The miles early on seemed to fly by with ease.

I was really surprised when I came up on Parashi. He started ahead of me and had slowed to a walk at around mile 14. I slowed up beside him to see if he was okay and he said his lower leg was hurting. He told me to keep going. I asked if he wanted to run with me, which he tried, but in a few strides said he needed to take it easy. I made sure he was okay and with a smile on his face told me to go, go, go. I felt bad moving on without him but I took his words of encouragement and ran on. I’m glad to hear he finished and finished well.

I felt great until about mile 20 and my calves started to cramp. I had to stop and stretch a couple of times but kept going. I pushed hard through the final hills in the park where I was greeted with a loud roar from a group of friends and coworkers that helped push me up one of the final hills to finish line. I arrived to the words of the announcer saying something like “ It looks like one of our Maasai Warriors is approaching the finish line” that gave me chills.

Finishing in 3:09:33 is fast enough to qualify for Boston in April, which supposedly is the marathon of marathons. So I guess I’m going to do all this again soon (I’m not sure it will be as exciting though). Afterwards, I met up with friends and family at PJ Clarks for a well-deserved burger and a beer. It was a great time of celebration with friends, family and other runners after the race.

It felt great to complete the marathon for the Masaai, the team and all the people that support the cause. This will be memorable experience for the rest of my life and has definitely inspired me to pursue more fundraising efforts in the future (again, though they might not be as exciting as this one).

It is day four and most of the pain has subsided, but I know from past experience that the pain from the marathon does not end at the finish line. It stays with you for a few days. Maybe so you don’t forget the exciting and wonderful thing you just accomplished.

Thanks for all the help and support. I especially would like to thank my parents who flew all the way up from Georgia to support me. Dad, thanks for inspiring me to run these crazy races. Also a big thanks to all the groups at each of the cheering stations. The marathon committee in the office. We would not have been as successful without all your help and commitment. Thank you so much to all my friends and family that donated. I’d also like to thank Erika Matthias who set up this blog and helped me share the stories along the way. I hope to keep the blog going and share more stories about races, training, traveling and all the experiences I have in the city. Check back for more updates and photos.

and there you have it...

We have marathonned!
From the sidelines:

Brian performed phenomenally. He will post soon about his amazing experience and personal-best time, though I believe tonight's agenda was "icing and stretching." He was the first of all the Maasai Marathon team to cross the finish line, and we are all very proud.

The experience of cheering the runners on in Central Park in the last stretch was phenomenal itself. Wheelchair racers, runners of every imaginable nationality, intense halloween costumes, the sick and delirious, and men with bloody nipples frightfully staining their jerseys were just a few of the experiences that made the hours of yelling colorful and bearable.

Brian had four teams of support along the route: Fort Greene in Brooklyn (mile 14); 92nd and 1st in upper Manhattan, 92nd and 5th (mile 18), and our team at Central Park East around 74th (mile 24). We were able to follow his pacing and progress through text-message updates and on the internet with our phones, as well.

As we knew Brian was approaching, Team Mile 24 became quite anxious, looking for him... and looking... and looking...we almost missed him! He was nearly past us before a heroic yell came forth from one of our legion, and then we erupted. We were completely exhausted after that sixty seconds of emotional wailing, and panicked at the thought that we nearly missed him. It was then that we realized we despised the white jersey a little bit, whose generic color made picking out the MWCT runners quite difficult. Though finding runners within the horde is probably challenging regardless, it remained difficult to find the crew the entire afternoon, and we only were able to identify probably a third of the MWCT runners. There were definitely a few we were looking for and were quite sad to miss out on (Luca, Sunte- :( we so desperately wanted to yell for you! ).

Seeing the beleaguered troops dragging up the hill (we were mid-hill, the running looked painful at that point), you couldn't help wanting to encourage them, all tens of thousands of them... so we took to identifying people who either looked like they really needed support to keep them moving (or just those who clearly had their name displayed), and then gave them all we had. It was a good time, though completely exhausting after what ended up being four hours. We learned that Italians respond really well to having "Italia!" called out, the French like "Allez la France" maybe half the time, and Brazil responds pretty well, as do the Scandinavias, whereas Deutschland only really responded well at most, a third of the time (not an official study, just an observation under these circumstances). A couple of our team members are considering starting a business, "Say My Name," that strategically plants cheering sections for weary athletes to deliver needed support.

We were really pumped to see Parashi run through, but way later than he should have- his calves were killing him. The problem with taking mega-fast Kenyan runners from their environs in the Maasai wildlands and plopping them on the asphalt of Manhattan is the potential for shock. The asphalt was so unforgiving in comparison to what they normally run on that they switched from their Michelin Thousand Miler sandals to Puma running shoes, and their feet weren't accustomed to them. Samson's stress fracture prevented him from running. Hope this doesn't sour their experience here in the states at all.

The crew, all of them, were very honorable today, battling it out on with the pavement. And as of today the Maasai Marathon effort has raised well over seven hundred thousand dollars, now pushing eight hundred (can we make it more? Donate HERE). But Brian is the hero, first of the MWCT team to cross the finish line and represent us all. Yay! Continue to follow him, he's going places....