Guest Blogger: New Year's Eve Central Park 4 Miler 2010...A Real Bucket Lister! (Sherry P))

After a string of failed New Years Eve plans including one year where I unknowingly ended up at a senior citizens event where the only person who would talk to us was a drunk retired chemistry professor, I decided to take charge and plan something that was sure to be exciting this year. What better place to go for guaranteed excitement than the Big Apple? New York City. Instead of standing for 12 hours straight in Times Square waiting for the ball to drop, my friend Deidre and I decided to run in Central Park, which is the location of the Emerald Nuts Midnight 4 Mile Run every year on New Years Eve. Plus, I needed another reason to wear my tutu, which I proudly display in Scott’s Turkey Trot write up (see shameless pics). My third use of tutu for the year counting the Somerville Jingle Bell race in Massachusetts. That’s right folks: one tutu, three states. Anyway, I am happy to report that I broke my string of failed New Years Eves! This was a real bucket list experience for any runner! Thousands of reveling runners showed up dressed in costumes, New Years Eve hats, me in my tutu, and other crazy attire in preparation for the experience. Music, dancing, and a costume contest started at 10pm, although Deidre and I were huddled up at a bar until just about race time after walking 3 miles in the cold to the race from the hotel, only to discover that bar food and martinis are not an ideal way to prepare for a race. If I had any idea how much attention one gets for wearing a tutu on the streets of NYC and in a bar no less, I would have been wearing this thing daily for years. After arriving at the race, we all lined up in one large corral and were informed that the race begins precisely when the firework display begins. At exactly midnight, the most amazing display of fireworks burst over our heads and off we went! The fireworks lasted for 15-20 minutes, just continuing to fire off over our heads as we ran through the park. I have never seen anything quite like it. It was like the city was exploding! Thank goodness it really wasn’t. The highlight of the race was the drunken runners who zipped past us yelling, “oh my god, I am SO hammered!” Yet somehow they were running faster than us?! Nicely done! The spectators were great too, high fiving all the runners, yelling “happy new year!”, this was a great race for that feeling of camaraderie you can get at races. Such a happy and friendly crowd, not to mention a diverse crowd, runners were coming from all over the world to run this race. At the 2 mile mark was a water and champagne stop. Gotta love that! And at the end of the race, the announcer called attention to any and all runners coming past the finish line. I was happy, once again, to be called out for my lovely tutu, the announcer said, “Tutu at the finish line!!!” So of course I did some ridiculous hop/skip move across the finish line, you know, the kind of move you do when you have a tutu on. All and all an amazing experience. I could very easily be convinced to do this again next year, so if there are any takers….I’m in! I can’t think of a better way to ring in the new year than a good run. Happy New Year!

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