Welcome to New York...

Growing up in a small town you dream of more. You dream of culture, art and music. You dream of being someone else. In NYC most of the people there are from a small town. Everyone has big dreams of becoming something. They have dreams of making their dreams come true. If you head to NYC from a small town it's usually because small town life was not for you. Everyday people arrive in the big apple hoping to live out their dreams. Unfortunately not everyone makes it. Sometimes it's not about a huge dream, it's just about seeing what else is out there.
What does this have to do with running? For me, everything! About a year ago I sat at my desk and contemplated making my dream a reality. Of course, the obvious marathon to look at was in the city of dreams. Not only is it the place to make it, but it's the place thats so big your almost anonymous. If you fail, your one of many and not very noticable. If you dream big, fail big. Go big or go home. Lot's of other awesome sayings can be inserted here:). When I looked into the NYC marathon, clearly it was about to take place and you could no longer sign up. I actually learned a lot that day about marathon entry. I saw that I needed to run a smaller marathon first, submit a time into the lottery and hope for the best. I decided to give myself two years, run a 5k, 10k and a half first. I would start to work up slowly and descend on the city of dreams.
Yeah... So... About two months later I got the number for Boston, then I ran Wakefield and about a year later it's time for NYC. That whole waiting two years thing didn't exactly pan out but why wait? Now that there is only three days until I fullfill my original goal, I was thinking about what led me to NYC in the first place.
I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, known for a face in a mountain that no longer exists, live free or dying (No seat belt required), and the Pamela Smart case (Hot for teacher). My father traveled for work and we heard and saw all about what the rest of the world had to offer. At the time, I was a bit different (that's putting it REALLY mildly) and wanted to be with people more like myself. Thank god I got over that phase (Damn I looked like shit back then! I see pictures and alsways wonder what I was thinking!)After my school years I wanted to be a dancer and dreamed of the big city. NYC was one of the many stops along that crazy path. Ultimately I ended up back in Boston. I became a lot heavier once I realized I did not want to be a dance teacher forever and lost the weight and blah blah blah (You know the rest). New York has always been the place where I believed my dreams would pan out and I have a feeling this was the actual dream I was thinking of.
On the eve of my third marathon I realized that Dover NH taught me to dream, Boston trained me to achieve my dream and maybe NYC is the place to live my dream. To get a personal best would be amazing but to finish and to grab that metal will be life changing. Did I mention the metal was made by Tiffany's yet? Yeah probably about 100 times:). To the dream my friends! 3 days. Like Taylor Swift says "Welcome to NY, it's been waiting for you!"