New York City Marathon 2012: Part One ~ MomSwimBike

George, Nicholas and I arrived in New York City safe and sound around 3:00 pm. I was eager to go to the expo and pick up my bib. George kept stalling and saying he had to do one more thing or this or that. I was getting so frustrated. Then George told me to look at Facebook. I found a video of my friends form Texas Bianca and Val wishing me luck for the Marathon. I got all teared up and was so touched that they made me a video to wish me good luck.

Then George kept stalling some more and I was seriously beginning to wondering if he was purposely trying to aggravate me. Then there was a knock at the door. I look through the peephole only to find a finger over the opening. I asked who it was and someone said housekeeping. I was wasn't really even thinking, and I just opened the door. Standing there were Val and Bianca. I don't even know what I did. I think I let go of the door so it slammed in their faces and walked away. Then I turned back around and cried like a baby and hugged them so tight.

I can't even believe my friends flew all the way from Texas just to see little ole me run the marathon. I have the BEST friends. I felt so happy and was on such a high. The girls made "Team Susan" T-shirts and I put mine on to head to the expo and get my bib.

We got to the expo around 4:00 or 4:30 I think and no one was there. It was pretty empty. I pretty much walked right in and grabbed my bib. Just like that.

I could use a little make up, but I got my bib!

I posed for some all important pictures,

and all us girls bought a Sweaty Band.

Everything seemed perfect. Again, I was so happy the girls were there and I began to feel more and more at ease about the whole 26.2 thing. We left the expo and we going to head back to the hotel to find out a good place to eat.

Whenever we were standing in line to talk to the concierge, I looked at my phone and saw I had like 5 text messages. The first one I saw was from my sister, saying she was sorry. Then, Tracey saying she didn't want to be the person to "break it to me". I suddenly knew what happened. The marathon had been cancelled!

I was heartbroken, but only for myself. In my heart of hearts, however, I knew it was the right thing to do. I really felt like the marathon should have been cancelled earlier in the week. I just decided not to waste any time being mad and saying coulda, shoulda, woulda. I was glad I was in New York with my friends and family and I was going to make the best of it.

We wound up going to dinner at a great Pizza place and then spent the night in Bianca and Val's room drinking a few cocktails. We decided if we were going to be in New York City then we were going to have some fun. So we decided to meet in the morning and take in some of the sites.

First stop? The subway. Nicholas wanted to ride the subway so badly so we decided we'd take the subway from our hotel at 42nd street to 72nd street at Central Park.

The good thing is we got to see some real live New York City rats! Yes rats! Nice right? Why did we want to ride the subway again?

We managed to ride the subway unscathed, however and arrived at Central Park.

I started getting pretty sad seeing all the marathon stuff.

I still had an awesome cheering section and the cheered me through to the finish line.

And I got my victory shot at the finish line.

So many people were running in Central Park. Some were wearing their marathon shirts and some even had on their bibs. I felt the disappointment in the air and my own grew.

We walked through part of Central Park and left to walk down 5th Avenue and take in some of the sites.

My personal fave!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Rockefeller Center

And we finally wound up in Times Square where we ate lunch.

After lunch we starting making our way towards the Empire State Building when George spotted $1 pizza slices. He's been dying for a slice of NYC pizza since the first time we visited New York in 2004. He finally got it and I think it was everything he imagined it would be. Thanks Joey Pepperoni!

I'd been to the Empire State Building before, but I hadn't been to the observation deck. I was determined to go up this time, but thought George would be too cheap to pony up the dough.