finisher chicago but her claim to fame is projects that we're going to learn all about this very important project i'm honored that stephanie as my guest thank you i'm hon husband my family and i went out and then after that i thought that my husband why don't we go check out the park look just go back there and see what's going on i was completely obsessed with everything about the new york city marathon that year as it being my first year in training and seeing all the fine pop up everywhere so we went back to the park and noticed that people were still coming in so finishing so then we just decided that i then we got to witness a few people coming  in and then there is this one woman who an article came out about her after the marathon her name was actually still remember her name she had recently had type of operation and he was coming in i think around eleven hours after she had started and there were a small handful of people there respected yes yes and mostly mostly volunteers actually with peter talked but it wasn't a big crowd like you see for the pros or just for the people that are coming in before her so we stayed until almost when she was finished and we actually caught her as she was coming up towards the finish we were heading out of the park she never name didn't know but she had actually met two women in harlem who helped escort her down to the park so that was amazing to random women just to see her walking towards the finish line these were much you know when they were spectators but i think  yeah i didn't officially have a name but we had gone back i used the new york road runners virtual training program to train for the marathons actually all of the marathons that i've done and so i reached out to a few people in there and a few people came out and then the next year which was last year two thousand and seventeen there was a bigger push for it because i think you know some people had heard a little bit more about it so we started a facebook page and we started our hashtag project finished and started circulating and picked up a lot of momentum specially towards the last week of training so just us everyone's finishing their training and their tapering off you know everyone's going crazy they're not really sure that they're trusting their training they're starting to worry about how many miles they had put in everyone's communicating a lot more over social media about everyone's individual training plans and people were able to come across and share the had heard from the new york times and they said ok we're going to show up and we're going to stay the whole night i was so excited and i couldn't believe it so i had told everyone on the facebook page that the new york times are going to come and i think that also help probably surprise all this but the puppy from a superhero yeah there was one woman who said that exact same thing when typically when people come in towards the end of the race there's not as many people showing up so i think that it really made her her night just to see a lot of people there to support her so i think in total we had about over one hundred people show up so i'm expecting it to be bigger this year i've been involved with new york road runners and see him do that every single race not just the marathon but also it turned out i was the year where your peter has the winners and the elites that he had to leave a party  and then they showed up coincidentally the same year that the new york times came so it's just the perfect marriage just car you want to get your video you know they they enhanced it and it was really really made for a wonderful people come back to the finish line because they know that there's going to be easy for expiring stories at the end and they just want to celebrate with it inspires people to think you know if this person to do it i can do yeah yeah it was amazing to watch i know of course you're going to do it again this year of course yes so it's been ramping up and right now we have over one hundred and twenty one of the twenty ish people confirmed on the facebook event and talk about growing up here sure so i was born in philadelphia and raised right outside of philadelphia so very familiar with that he's and then later on when my husband and i moved here it was it was very cool jefferson university in philadelphia nurse emerged so now wife and university ok yeah and you studied fashion yes i studied fashion design which is very different from running yes i studied fashion design and their work as a technical designer and what that or not my very very very first job was named in the paper patent really how about that we have something else in common besides running yeah i'm in school where you have other king involved i wasn't on any specific sports teams in college in high school i bounced around from time to to winter track and across but i really didn't start running running like i do now and until i moved to new york city and i was commuting to my job but believe it or not i felt like i was getting winded by going up and down the subway stuff and having a little bit of experience and running because my older sister who had run a couple marathon i picked it up and i thought ok let me just see if this is for me let me try it out before you knew it i wasn't walking up and down the subway steps out of breath any more so it was obviously working and then i found a new york road runners and now call them part of my home walked from our apartment and you know i was completely and all of the runners and i thought to myself no that's not for me that's great i'm so glad for them and so inspiring and i love to see speed was definitely planted in that moment because then the next year two thousand and fourteen i qualify with new york road runners nine plus one program but you run nine of their qualifying races and then you didn't train with the team you just followed their program we just went out well they it's great because you put in all of your information very detailed information and they come up with a plan for you and it generates this amazing program and you know with that it is pretty much like a team that has a facebook page where everyone can communicating about their different runs that they have and then they also host some long training runs over the summer or we do meet up and connect put a face to a technical side so what a technical designer does is when designer creates a sketch that's the technical designer's job to make that sketch come to life so basically all the numbers behind all of the measurements that are  i can do that i've done it before but after twenty two miles is unknown territory and i'm probably going to die that was my i was convinced but after that i didn't know it was going to happen and who really knows right so that so i got to the start line yeah exactly i was having so much fun i didn't think about worry and then i when i had mile twenty three i realized oh i forgot to worry about that but this is so much fun i'm having a great time and then with your family there could be jus yeah yeah definitely it was just it feels really good to see you know family on the sidelines specially your friends who come out and just people cheering you on in some people you don't even know and that's ok but they can look you right in the eye and you know they're there cheering exactly for you and it can make all the difference wanted to have your name on your card i did and i actually have never done that but a lot of people are going to want to put their i suppose like that first something that i used that they were asking us to down everything the your you were eating just to keep track of you know what you're eating how much water you are drinking how much protein you are taking and so they do ask about that there's no nutrition specific coach that's coming alongside but they can give really really great advice you know just about what they can and when an expression really fueling during races one of the reasons why i was nervous they even start to train was because i would black out and almost like passed out after a half marathon and it was apparently because my gels didn't have high enough sodium content for my body so i actually coach john on our campus we had gone back and forth about this and i told him my concern about you know running long distance because i don't feel well after and like i lose my vision and he was the one who suggested that i look into the different amount sodium and that maybe that could be it so and that was definitely the case but then once i switched out my energy gels the problem was fixed so it was just specific and they just discontinued so i have two left of the strawberry banana but there are expired but i will be running with them because i couldn't find them anywhere off available online and  i do have to switch up and find a new a new gel provider i should go back to your facebook page but he said you know what i did that i reached out to the new york road runners virtual training group on facebook and a lot bake your own you know figure out yes that way you will never run out tom i'm big on coming up with my own recipes and i have specific dietary restrictions and i eat very healthy myself so i love coming up with new recipes and sharing them out so that's something that i am totally interested in but definitely have to be a liquid for me so we'll see we'll see what i can hopefully get some or maybe if there's another brand that i can oh ok through nutrition problem or any other challenges that came up to you he conquered that yeah i would say the the biggest challenge was just believing that i could do it and i think that a lot of runners have to overcome that as well which is why a project that is just so near and dear to all of our hearts because we were at that place where you know you think ok i'm going to do it i'm going to go for it and we'll see how it goes for some people just you know until they cross the finish line they're in disbelief of how it's actually going to go so believing in myself that i can do it was a was a big heart being physically life as well confidence self esteem you know learning how to wake up in the morning on time and now i'm a morning person i get up at five am whether i'm working on something else working on a project i'm working on or going for a run i'm just i've you know it's just become a part of me just to wake up early  so much for coming in you're welcome thank you so much for having me well it's been a pleasure and good luck thank you so much thank you so great to be here thank you for having in a lot of cases they met people on the way and they build these friendships along of course and i don't want to give off and with them i said no mess among the people they're walking through and then we kept pushing each other my name is stephanie for the average new york city marathon or win this isn't about four hours and thirty five minutes the average time that a minister will complete the new york city marathon after seven thirty p is probably around eight to ten hours so there's quite a difference