I have been working with a very cool non profit organization located in NYC called "The Fresh Air Fund" for almost 2 years now. The Fresh Air Fund helps inner city children get out of the city for a few weeks during the summer to either a host home in the country or a camp in upstate New York.
The New York City 1/2 Marathon offers non profits like "FAF" a number of spots in the race which allows anyone who wants to raise money for the cause participate in this exclusive run. Gretchen, Genevieve, and Courtney are all runners and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for them to participate. They each had to raise $1000 to run in the race. We started raising money for this back in December and were able to meet the $3000 a couple of weeks ago. If you'd like to donate you still can here.
We came into the city on Saturday evening and stayed over at a really nice hotel - the Hotel Indigo in Chelsea. Genevieve was able to get us all rooms at a fantastic discount using points she's accrued from her US Open stays in the city. Luck of the draw, we got a room that had a broken air conditioner...sigh...Needless to say it was about 80 degrees in our room and neither Gretchen nor I slept very well - the kids did not seem bothered.
I didn't really know what to expect from the race and I was actually very impressed with the marathon. It was exciting to be there and cheer on Gretchen and the Fresh Air team. The kids were a bit of a handful moving from place to place, but it all worked out for the best. We ended up missing the finish because the taxi we took got stuck in traffic, circled back, and an 8 minute ride took us 45 minutes to get to the end. We had a great time and I am super proud of Gretchen, Genevieve, and Courtney for doing this. Here are the photos and video:
