New York City Marathon 2011

Last year about this time I had the opportunity to watch the NY Marathon again..... and ...it clicked! Having ran 5 times this amazing event in the early nineties I decided I must do it again.

Here we are, one week before the event I looked at some of the data. Thank you Garmin Connect! During the last 365 days, I made 190 runs, completed over 1,700 km, burned 143.235 calories, lost 6 kilo's had an elevation of 10,8 KM and honestly feel pretty good about my sporting life. As history tells us, this is not at all a guarantee for a solid finish time next week. My workload and other activities simply don't allow me to run weeks with plus 60K so we will see. What is very nice tough that the preparation for my tenth marathon was build on the streets of: Paris (Bois de Boulogne), Etang la Ville, Deauville, Cherbourg, Versailles (le Parc) , Megeve, Dellach-Austria, New York (Central Park), Mamaroneck, Atlanta, San Antonio, Orlando, Miami, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, Barcelona, Oostende, Berg en Dal and .... Amsterdam. Also nice to know that I think that probably 10% of my runs were made with our loyal lab Charlie!

What was more important to me was the ability to raise funds for cancer research. Again I joint Memorial Sloan Kettering's Fred's Team. As Fred's Team we will probably raise close to $4MM, personally so far I have raised $7,000 and I am really proud of that achievement. Family, friends, colleagues from today and from many years ago have contributed generously. Its very moving that, thanks to FB, folks I have worked with many years ago connected, recognized the cause I am running for and donated. Simply FANTASTIC!

Preparing for a marathon is foremost a mental game the physical aspects will follow. To commit yourself to such an undertaking is huge. The preparation is though, finding the time to run, get yourself in the mood to run, adapting all your patterns and much more needs focus and commitment. When you feel that you are not alone and supported by the many sponsors the energy its create is phenomenal. All the emails with information, tips, encouragements from the Fred's Team organization is simply amazing. If anyone who reads this has any ambition to run a marathon, go for New York its simply the best and most impressive ( I also ran Rotterdam, Berlin, Paris and London) and Fred's Team is unbelievable, they are just terrific in the organization and support and I think the best is yet to come next Sunday Nov 6.

To me the real bottom line remains simple.

• I am extremely lucky that I have the physical ability and natural drive and motivation to run a marathon
• I have a circle of caring folks who understand that the most effective way to block cancer is by understanding the real causes through research, hence they donated generously
• I want to have an amazing "race day" seeing family and friends, going through the pain, emotions and hopefully joy at the finish line in the Parc!

Marathon week started...and I am ready!