NOV 7 — On a crisp, sunlit morning, New York City stretched its arms out wide and embraced the sound of whooping crowds, street parties, rock bands and a city teeming with runners from more than 125 countries.

I do like a good marathon, having run three myself — London, NYC and Venice — before finally reaching my sub-four hour goal in the last. But the incredible spectator support made New York the most memorable, and with an estimated crowd of close to 2.5 million lining the streets yesterday for this year’s ING New York Marathon, a day of record-breaking proportions was on the cards.

We left our WNBC 4 television screens behind, and herded our kids up to 61st Street and First Avenue before 11am to catch the first female runner, Kenyan Mary Keitany, pass our apartment block on mile 16.

Keitany ran with the gutsy determination of a marathon winner with a world record in her grasp, strong and frighteningly fast, and a healthy gap of approximately 2½ minutes between her and the lead pack of female runners.

We waited until the men’s lead pack sped through, Kenyan runners Geoffrey Mutai and Emmanual Mutai in their midst, before dashing back up to watch, what we had assumed, would be a sure win for race favourite Keitany. 

It all went horribly wrong on mile 24 in Central Park when Ethiopians Firehiwot Dado and her race buddy Buzunesh Deba, 24, who lives in the Bronx, caught up with a now weary-looking race leader. They made an impressive bolt to the finish which secured 27-year-old Dado first place with a time of 2 hours 23 minutes 15 seconds and Deba, second, 2:23:19. Keitany finished third in 2:23:38.

Who would have thought a paltry 23 seconds would have been the difference between winning and losing a 26.2-mile course, the majority of which was in Keitany’s tight control?

Paula Radcliffe — watching yesterday having recently run the Berlin marathon — said she was worried at the halfway point that Keitany, who was clocking a few under 5:10-minute miles, would break her world record for the women’s marathon of 2:15:25 set in London back in 2003.

She added, a little smugly I thought: “But you have to have something in reserve for the second half.” But this is true, I remember clearly those unexpected rolling hills of Central Park in the last two miles of the NY marathon I ran in 1999.

Dado, wearing her medal and a laurel crown, said afterwards that she didn’t really think they would close the impressive gap created by Keitany, and “when we caught up to her, I was very surprised.” Dado, who lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was not well-known to the major marathon scene; today’s victory has rectified that.

The disappointment I felt for Keitany’s loss didn’t last too long, as we watched 30-year-old Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai shatter the current men’s world record held for the New York Marathon with his 2 hours 5 minutes 6 seconds finish, taking more than two minutes off EthiopianTesfaye Jifar’s previous record of 2:07:43. Now that’s impressive.

In a post-race interview, Mary Wittenberg, the president and CEO of New York Road Runners, organisers of the ING NYC Marathon, spoke of perfect weather conditions making this year’s marathon “an extraordinary day here in NYC.”

A record breaking 47,000 runners (out of 145,000 applicants) were accepted into the NY marathon, and made it through the five New York boroughs, with a reported million dollars in charity clocked up for every mile run.

“It just keeps getting bigger and better” Wittenberg laughed as she talked of making the New York Marathon a two-day affair. Having breathed in today’s marathon mania, I must say it is rather contagious; maybe there will be a dusting off of my marathon boots ready for 2012!

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.