New stuff is on the "News" page. Go
there for the story of the Parks Family trip to Wisconsin Dells, Annalyn's first FOUR 5K races and the Boston story. NOW WITH PICTURES AND VIDEO!
And check out our new "Pictures" page for still more
pictures......or is that more still pictures?
OK. Here is the story of our New York trip.
Sorry it took a couple of weeks to get it together but we wanted to wait until
we got the video and pictures together so you can link to them.
New
York video and pictures
Day 1: Thursday, November 1st. We all got up
at 5AM and after Lynn walked on the treadmill, the three of us went outside to
run.........in the dark. We didn't want to take a chance on flight delays or
anything else that might come up that would make us scramble to get it in when
we got to New York City. Jamie's Dad, Charlie and brother, Jason, showed up at
7. We loaded up our stuff and left for Midway Airport. Our flight was uneventful
but I now know how many rows are in a 737. The answer is 30 because that's the
row we were in. We took a cab to our hotel and after it took us 15 minutes to go
the last two blocks, the driver told Jamie that he couldn't pay with his Visa
because he didn't tell him that was his plan when we first got in. We were at
the W Hotel at 39th and Lexington in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. We
checked in and went up to our room. Holy cow! What a room. It was a king-sized
suite. The main room was big and had a huge walk-in closet that was more like
another small room (so did the bedroom). It had a sofa bed, giant work desk and
large mini-bar area. There was a big plasma flat screen TV in the main room AND
the bedroom. After unpacking, we headed out to the Jacob Javits Convention
Center. We were asked to be
there
to represent Runner's World at a "meet & greet" during the New York Marathon
Expo. The had a large backdrop with pictures of all of the Heroes of Running
from this year. It was pretty cool. Then there was a poster-sized picture of us
that they had on display. They had a giant stack of postcard-sized pictures of
us in case anyone wanted an autograph. We met and talked with Dave and Susan
from
Runner's World. We were there until about 7:45 and actually signed an
autograph or two.
Day 2. Friday, November 2nd. We got up early
and walked (the theme of the day) through Grand Central Station and over to
Rockefeller Center. We looked down onto the skating rink next to it and there
was Olympic figure skater, Sasha Cohen giving an exhibition. We went in and up
to the top of the building. What a great view of the city. The best part was
that we were the only ones up there. After taking a lot of pictures and video,
we went down to the Rock Center Cafe to get some breakfast. Sasha
Cohen was
also there, eating breakfast. After we ate, we walked by Radio City Music Hall,
Carnegie Hall and the Ed Sullivan Theater where David Letterman does his show
from. We stopped at the CBS Store and Hello Deli and then walked to Central
Park.
Beautiful is the only word that comes to mind. It was so cool that most of
the roads are closed to traffic so you can just walk and walk and only have to
look out for runners or cyclists. We came across on old-time carousel and
Annalyn got to ride on that. We wanted to run in Central Park and we knew of a
place called the Great Lawn Oval. It was a half-mile oval around a Great Lawn.
Hence the name. We did one lap with Annalyn and another
without her. We walked
past the Boathouse, where the next day Ryan Shay, one of the men trying out for
the US Olympic Marathon team, collapsed and died during the Trials probably due
to an enlarged heart. That was sad. Next stop was Bethesda Fountain (shown at
top). That is where the starting line was for the first season of "The Amazing
Race." Unfortunately, it wasn't wheelchair accessible so we had to take pictures
and video from the top of the stairs. We walked to the west side of the park to
the Dakota Building. We saw where John Lennon was shot and killed nearly 27
years ago.
Back to the hotel to recharge before we went out later that night to
experience Times Square. Talk about your sensory overload, wow! After meandering
about and taking more pictures and video, we ended up in the huge Toys 'R' Us
store. It's so big that it has a Ferris Wheel inside. We went on that with
Annalyn and got her a stuffed Rottweiler. Don't ask why. She thought it was
cute.
Day 3, Bears 0. Saturday, November 3rd. Jason
didn't feel good so he
stayed at the hotel while Jodi went with us. We caught
the subway at Grand Central Station and took it to Battery Park. The first thing
you see when you enter the park is this huge sphere that looks like an abstract
sculpture of some kind. What we learned was that it was the huge globe that had
been in the World Trade Center complex on 9/11. It survived the building
collapses but was pretty beat up. It now sits at the entrance to Battery as a
memorial. Battery Park is where a lot of the debris from the
buildings was piled
up in the days following the attacks. Our plan was to take the Staten Island
Ferry and go out past the Statue of Liberty. What we didn't know was that there
was a great view of the Statue right there from Battery Park. After more
pictures and video (Annalyn had her picture taken with a guy dressed as the
Statue)we decided to do our run for the day. Annalyn ran with us first and did
1/2 mile and then we did another 1/2. We went over to the ferry but the 10:30
had just left and we didn't have time to wait for the 11:00 because we were
still planning on going to Ground Zero and had to be back for our Rehearsal
Lunch by 1:00. Jason called about this time and said he was feeling better and
would meet us shortly. So after he joined us, we walked to Ground Zero, which is
basically just a construction site now. Standing there, looking up at where two
gigantic buildings used to stand and seeing NOTHING was very intense. We went by
the fire house where all of the firefighters on duty that day were killed. It
sits empty as a tribute to them. We didn't have time to go back to the subway
stop at Battery Park but there was one near Ground Zero. It wasn't accessible so
Jason carried Lynn's chair and Jamie carried Lynn and we went down the three
flights of stairs to the platform. Good workout.
After a quick shower at the
hotel, we were off to the Rehearsal Lunch at Wild Salmon. Jodi didn't come with
us because she had an opportunity to go to a matinee performance of "Young
Frankenstein," which was in previews on Broadway. We met up with Sue Hartman,
one of our contacts from Runner's World, and she ran everybody through how
things would happen later that evening. We got to talk with a few of our fellow
honorees. There was Jin, Rudy, Dot and Brin from the Blue Planet Runners. Rudy,
Dot and Brin were three of the 22 runners who ran AROUND the world last summer
in 95 days to draw attention to the ever-growing crisis of the lack of clean
drinking water in many parts of the world. Jin was the one who came up with the
idea. They did a sound check and had Annalyn read her first line of our
introduction. Jason was setting up camcorders and checking camera angles. We
practiced walking up to the podium to make sure there would be no surprises
later. After lunch, Jason went back to the
hotel while we took Annalyn to the
giant American Girl Doll store. Like Toys 'R' Us, this had 5 floors and a magnet
that pulled on my credit card. $102! For a doll! Fortunately for me, they didn't
have the doll Annalyn wanted (called "Just Like You"). For this doll, they match
up the eye, hair and skin color of the girl to the doll and then you can style
your hair the same way or dress alike. I told her we'd look for the right one
online after we got back home. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at
the Grand Hyatt and met up in the lobby with the Gaghan family, who were on the
"Amazing Race: Family Edition" a couple of years ago. The Dad, Bill, was in town
to run in the New York Marathon the next day and Jamie had exchanged e-mails
with Tammy, the Mom, in recent weeks so we knew that we'd all be in town at the
same time. They were as interested in hearing about our "story" as we were with
theirs. Annalyn hit it off well with Kelley, the youngest daughter (and the only
one who wasn't on "Amazing Race"). We spent an hour chatting (Billy and Carissa
are their other kids who WERE on the "Race") and then did more video and
pictures. We told them that we'd see them in Boston next April. Back to the
hotel for some lightning-fast showers. Jodi got back from the play just after we
walked in. She said that it was incredible. The
Heroes of Running Awards and
dinner were from 7:00-11:00 back at Wild Salmon. We got there about 6:55. We
found our table in the "Green Room" and were approached by a lot of people. One
was Sarah Reinertsen, another former "Amazing Race" contestant, who was
there to
introduce Amy Palmiero-Winters. Sarah and Amy share a common bond. They are both
runner/triathletes who have a prosthetic leg. Sarah came up to us and said how
our story inspired her. We also got to finally meet the big cheese from
Runner's
World, Editor-In-Chief, David Willey. He's the one who ultimately decided to
honor us as
Heroes of Running. We couldn't thank him enough. The woman who wrote
the piece that ran with our picture in Runner's World, Gail Kislevitz, found us
and we hung out with her for a good portion of the night. She also got to be
good buddies with Annalyn and gave her some advice about her speech. The
ceremony started at 8 with a tribute to Ryan Shay by the President of the New
York Road Runners Association. The introductions and acceptance speeches started
and all were outstanding. We followed the Blue Planet Runners. David Willey
first
said some nice words about us and then introduced Annalyn. She stole the
show. Her speech was SO GOOD. She got the biggest laughs of anyone. At the end
of her speech, she said, "Here are my parents, Lynn and Jamie Parks. They ROCK!"
She came offstage and held out her hand. I gave her a dollar. She kept it out
there and I gave her another one. That got a big laugh. We had actually set that
up earlier in the day when we were walking around town. Lynn went first and
after adjusting to the teleprompter, she did great. No one got more applause the
entire evening than Lynn. Not an easy job to follow those two. I did my
acceptance speech and managed to get through it without choking up too much. We
got a big ovation. Afterwards, we went back to the "Green Room" where many of
our fellow "Heroes" came up to congratulate us. We listened to the rest of the
speeches and it was good to hear that there are a lot more "Jesus Freaks"
amongst the world-class athlete
population that I thought. A good number of the
"Heroes" talked about their faith and how God helped them to get where they are
today. We talked with Sister Madonna Buder about that very fact. She is a
77-year-old nun who does Ironman Triathlons for a hobby. She has done 34 of them
along with hundreds of other races. We did some official pictures for Runner's World in front of their
backdrop in the "Green Room." Amy Palmiero-Winters approached us with an
insanely generous offer. She said that the company that she works for,
A Step Ahead (who made
her prosthetic leg AND Sarah Reinertsen's) wants to make Lynn a custom-fitted
racing wheelchair for us to use in the future. I didn't know what to say. They
also want to get Lynn set up with a
new chair to use around the house. I STILL
didn't know what to say. Jason will be our contact with them as they get the
ball rolling. Unbelievable! We got to talk with Barbara Sicuso and Dave
McGilivray (a fellow Hero) from the
Boston Marathon (Dave is the Race Director).
They both seemed genuinely excited to have us doing their race next April. I
half-jokingly mentioned to both David Willey and Gail Kislevitz about an idea to
write a book and neither one of them laughed. Hmmmm. Something to think about?
Jamie and Jason went around collecting autographs and pictures (Alan Webb and
his wife are the nicest people). Annalyn was sitting by Jodi and looked half
asleep so we got our coats on and got ready to leave. Then she was gone. We said
goodbye to a lot of people as we headed out the door. Then
we saw Annalyn. She
was in the lobby, holding court with about 5 people who were listening intently
to whatever she was talking about. So we left. What a night! It went SO much
better than we could have even imagined.
Day 4. Sunday, November 4th. Jodi left early
to catch a flight back to San Jose. As we sat waiting for the bellman to come
and get the bags, I remarked to Lynn that this was the first trip we had ever
taken where absolutely nothing had gone wrong. I spoke too soon. After we got to
La Guardia, I bought Annalyn a souvenir t-shirt and proceeded to lose it
somewhere between security and the plane. Oh well. After we got home, I
went
online and bought her one that looks just like it.
That's it. A weekend we'll never forget,
thanks to Runner's World and one I'll never forget, thanks to Lynn, Annalyn,
Jodi and Jason.
Racing season is now over. We did our last
race of the year on 11/11. It was the Tinley Turkey Trot. We finished in 19:55
which put us 27th of 244 overall and 4th in our age group. Next race will
probably be the Boston Marathon on April 21st of next year.