New York, Day 2

The goal on day 2 was to stay off my feet as much as possible to save my legs for the marathon on Sunday. It didn't really work out that well. We left the hotel in the morning and Kim and mom decided to go shopping at Macys and one of the hundreds of H&Ms in NYC. I went my separate way and went more North up to Niketown.

I took the subway up and then walked around for a while before I finally found it. There was a street fair going on that I looked around at and smelled all the food being cooked. If it had been closer to lunch time, I am sure I would have pigged out.

Once I found Niketown, I saw that it was quite amazing. All the stores in New York seem to be huge and this was no exception. It was 5 stories of Nike with each floor having a theme/category. I browsed through all of the running gear, jackets shoes, and just about everything that Nike had to offer. I was able to restrain myself and not buy anything, but it certainly was neat to see. On my way back to the subway, I had a great hotdog from a vendor. Greatness...

Next I hopped on the subway and headed towards a place called Paragon sports. That is a huge sports shop that has pretty much anything you could want/need for any sport. I also had a couple game cards that you take there to see if you win anything, but I didn't. I wish I had my dad's luck. I was able to find some socks that I was looking for (2XU compression socks) that help your legs fight fatigue. I can't say enough about how great these were. As soon as I put them on, my feet and calves felt better.

After that, I hopped on another shuttle that was headed to the race expo. I went back to look at the gear again and try to pick up a couple posters and a Pint Glass. I wasn't able to find the glass, but I did get to meet Olympic marathoner Brian Sell, which was pretty cool. I also picked up another poster that I am going to get framed to commemorate this race. After wandering around for a while, I got on yet another shuttle bus and headed back to where the women were shopping. We met up, I had a couple slices of pizza while they had some hot dogs and they went back at it in Macys. I went to the Starbucks in there to get off my feet and just watched the people milling around. Not too long after that, we headed on back to the hotel to grab some dinner.

The restaurant looked Italian from the outside, but it turns out it was Romanian. Mom and I had chicken parmesan with spaghetti and Kim had cheese tortellini. So much for going native Romanian, but it was really good. Back a couple more blocks to the hotel and I got everything situated so I wouldn't have to think much when I woke up at 4am to get to the race.