Ok, so here's the story. Some of you may know that last year I helped put on the Washington DC Marathon after it was cancelled by its organizers. PICnet built a web site to perk up the interest of local runners, and after the Washington Post ran an article about it, I found myself in the middle of marathon mania.

Since then, I've made many friends, most of whom are running fanatics. I've always told people, "yeah, I helped put on the marathon, but I'm no runner".

Well, I guess things have changed.

In late July, after much arm twisting from my friends, I applied for the New York City Marathon lottery. Unfortunately, days later I found that my number wasn't drawn, and I didn't make it into the race. However, around early September, I received an email stating that there were an extra 1,000 spots available in the marathon, and that I had been chosen to run!

So with absolutely no running of any kind in about 7 years (oh that great year of crosscountry back in high school), I've decided to run the NYC Marathon on November 2, 2003.

The famous P Diddy, ever hungry for fame, has decided to run the marathon as well. He even has a web site called Diddy Runs the City, where he doesn't seem to be running the race for competition.

"I'mma do my best to finish the race," Diddy said at MTV.com. "If I have to crawl, I'm gonna finish the race. I would like to win it, but I don't think that's possible due to my schedule and the time I've been training."

My simple goal: Beat P Diddy (and not crawl across the finish line)

So far, my running training has gone well. Week 1 of training was three weeks ago, when I ran 8 miles on that Saturday. This was more than 4 miles more of running I have ever done in my entire life! Two weeks ago I ran 20 miles, and just October 4 I ran 22 miles.

Here's the 26.2 mile course I'm going to run, with a nice mile by mile photojournal.

I'm going to have a lot of photos up here on the site as race day comes closer. Keep checking in!

See ya!
Ryan W. Ozimek