New York Business Trip - Mission Accomplished!

I have been doing physical therapy twice a week with Kelley and already see improvements. She wants me to continue running 3 times a week with Saturdays being my longer distance. Last week I went to New York for an after school conference for work. Since I'm now training for Boston, I wanted to make sure to keep up with my running while there. All work and no play is no fun, so I made sure to take advantage to see the sights of New York. The highlight of the whole trip was meeting my Mighty Miler's Regional Coordinator, Ivette. She works for New York Road Runner which is the headquarters for the The New York Marathon and Mighty Milers is in the youth section of that organization. Since this is our first year our school participates in this program, I wanted to meet her to let her know how much our students appreciate them donating incentives(for miles they run)for our students in our ASPIRE running clubs. We've been emailing each other back and fourth about Mighty Milers and maybe me going to meet her before I left. Eddie of course tagged along on this trip because he had never been to New York. Of course, while not at the conference, we went and did everything on our "New York must do" list. Ivette, was able to meet me in Central Park with our hubbies early Saturday morning and we ran through it(almost 7 miles). That of course, was my #1 "must do" on my list. There was snow on the ground, the lake was frozen and it was beautiful to run through that. She knew I was trying to recover from my tendinitis injury and had to run slow. We talked the whole time and she explained some Central Park history to me. She even took some pictures of us and we ran up the famous "Cat Hill"(which is statue of a bobcat on top of a hill).  Her husband and Eddie ran together and got along great. He qualified for New York Marathon this year and they both love to run. I also found out that both of our parents are from Mexico which is something we have in common. On Sunday, Eddie and I went on a City Running Tours and ran about 5 miles through Chinatown, the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge. That was also fun! On Monday, I went to see Ivette at her office at the NYRR headquarters. Their offices are in a big open space with a bunch of cubicles for all the workers there. It was just like what you see on T.V.  I met her manager and they gave Eddie and I the grand tour. I almost meet the CEO, but she was in a meeting. They took pictures of us and I took pictures (including the New York Marathon map on the wall). We even met an Olympic gold medalist that goes to school and give motivational speeches to students. They also checked to make sure that I was registered for the New York Marathon lottery drawing for guaranteed free entry for this year. They will do the drawing at the end of this month and said that if I don't get drawn in to let them know. Ivette said that she may even give me a ticket they give her to run The New York Marathon. That of course would be a dream come true because there is no way I can qualify.  The NY Marathon qualifying times are much tougher than Boston. I do believe this is a start of a good friendship! All in all, I was able to keep up with my training and the best part is that my foot didn't hurt. Mission accomplished!!