By a surprising coincidence I was in New York at the same time my twin sister ran the New York Marathon. This really wasn’t planned, and just happened: I am in the US to attend the TREC conference in Washington DC and before the conference I stopped by Columbia University in New York city (my alma mater.) I didn’t realize it until shortly after making my plans, but Alana was going to be running the marathon at the same time I was in the city, which worked out just great.

This was my first time to actually watch a marathon as a spectator. It was a lot of fun, but amazingly tiring. Michelle and I spent about six hours running from a viewing spot in Williamsburg to 99th Street and First Ave, and then over to closer to the end of the race near Central Park. Especially in Williamsburg the crowd was really fun and supportive.

Since Alana, Wendy, and Lizette run under the group name of “Las Diablas” Michelle and I wore little hand-made devil horns and had a nice poster that Ron designed. We often saw the same runners at our three vantage points, and they seemed to remember us fairly well because of the horns. Even more surprisingly, people would yell at us “They are coming – they’re right behind us” — apparently people recognized that we were cheering for Alana and Wendy and noticed them too!

Everyone was so supportive that I really felt like running a marathon is an experience that I would like to have. So I am not seriously considering running a marathon now. It was really amazing seeing Alana complete the marathon. The next day she was totally exhausted, but extremely happy about the whole thing.

Now, if I run the Tokyo Marathon in 2008, will Alana come out and cheer for me…?