Drawing (and Running) The NYC Marathon

The day I slapped a thousand hands, or how can I love NYC even more?

I never expected to run a marathon, but I did, and in my favorite city in the world, New York City. It was not a decision that came easily; I have been a runner on and off for years, and it was only this year that I began to increase my distance. What motivated me was that I wanted to raise money for cancer research; our daughter just recently successfully battled thyroid cancer and I wanted to help. I discovered a group that assists athletes in both fundraising and training. The coach at Team in Training, a part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, convinced me that I could do it. I signed on.

Soon, I decided that I would draw the marathon as I ran it. In one of my half marathons earlier in the year, I had drawn a few images of runners and scenes on my iPhone with my finger. I thought this would be great to do during the marathon as well. For this, however, I chose to use a mini iPad so that I could draw more complete images — the size of my iPhone was limiting and was the use of my finger instead of a stylus. For the run, I bought a protective case and strap, and it ended up being perfect.

Training was tough, but I enjoyed the challenge, and I am grateful to my body for cooperating. Even still, I knew the marathon would be really hard and a big stress on…