Hello!
It’s been too long, let’s catch up! And I suppose I owe you a race report. After getting back from New York, following several weeks of zipping around Montana, I’ve been playing catch up in the office, and beginning to plan our 2020 MUS Wellness program. This is one of my favorite times of the year. I always enjoy the energy of planning for a new program year, plus the holidays and ski season are right around the corner! I love it. So apologies for this delayed report—I’ve been busy!
As many of you know, I lived in New York City for a few years prior to moving to Montana. I was able to run the New York City Marathon twice during my time there, in 2010 and 2011. Last year around this time, I was feeling nostalgic about the race, and I decided to enter myself into the 2019 marathon lottery on a lark. Having very low expectations, naturally I got in. Then came the small panic attack as I realized I’d have to do marathon training! It turns out that training for a fall marathon in Montana is pretty nice, although there were a few weeks in October there that were not very forgiving, or fall-like.
So on November 3rd, I finished my third NYC Marathon with a time of 3 hours 10 minutes. The weather was beautiful (it was actually still autumn there), and the race itself is just epic. With over 50,000 runners and two million spectators, it’s the largest single-day sporting event in the world. It was a thrill to run it again. Here is a short narrative in pictures:
But seriously, I earned these.
Once again, it’s good to be home and setting my sights on the New Year with the planning of our upcoming MUS Wellness program, and thinking about personal goals as well. I don’t think there are any more marathons in my near future, but I’ll never say never. Right now, after months of dedicated training, I’m content to play outside and have fun, enjoying ski season and the holidays!
Cheers!
Neal
Montana Moves 
Wow Neal! Thanks for sharing the pictures, and your sense of humor, so fun. Congratulations on your race! I admire your dedication to a healthy, fit lifestyle.
Pam Anderson
University of Montana
Human Resource Services
406-243-6451
Great to see you when you were in Helena and great race report -love the pictures. It sure sounds like you had a great race! How fun to go back to your old ‘hood.
Travis Anderson, new to OCHE, was just saying he wanted to run one of the Big City marathons – preferably NYC. I shared your post with him, just in case he didn’t get it.
(He just logged in to Limeade yesterday to record his pushups for our team — dude does 250 pushups/day on routine basis – OCHE, we have our ringer!)
Great share, Neal! Congratulations on completing your third New York Marathon with an excellent time. That is quite an accomplishment–thank you for representing Montana. The photos were awesome, too. I believe that you ate all the doughnuts in the window, btw. But what about the Cannoli?
Looking forward to next year’s MUS Wellness Incentive Program.
Kind Regards and Montana Cheers!
Denise
congrats, Neil! But I didn’t see you on TV??Come over and do Missoula’s Marathon in June. PEACE, Myke ________________________________