Getting Started

Instead of its usual spammy offerings, my mailbox had a real treat for me yesterday. When I got home, NYRR's "Get Started Guide" to the 2010 New York City Marathon was waiting for me.

Maybe it's just that I'm a child of the 20th century, but there's something about print that makes things more real. There's part of me that mistrusts the cloud. Things can go wrong and get accidentally deleted - a sneeze and a click and poof! Files are gone. Tech-heroes can step in and make things right, but without their super tech-savvy powers, when something goes wrong I'm a damsel in distress trapped in a tower guarded by a byte-chomping dragon and a wi-fi blocking moat.

Which is why even though I'm in the NYC marathon and have known I was in since last year when I completed the 9+1 program, part of me didn't quite believe it.

Until yesterday. A blue and orange pamphlet in my mailbox made i t all real. It let me know with goosebumps that all that training was for something concrete: the 2010 New York City Marathon.

The guide includes useful information like a link to the MTA, lists of official hotels, and discounts to Mary Poppins on Broadway: information I don't need. Except for the medical and training sections, it was all irrelevant for New Yorkers. I still read it all front to back.

Getting to see the race week schedule set me off with orange fizzy feelings because getting an official printed guide is not the same as getting the weekly "On Course" emails.

Print made it real. I'm in.