We asked our contributor, Christina Piluso, to write about her experience running in Sunday's New York City Marathon. We're very amazed and proud of her, as we are of all the other entrants. Everyone's story for preparing to run a marathon is unique. But we face the common hurdles from just getting into the famous New York City Marathon, to injuries, frustration, exhaustion and most importantly, and finally the thrill of calling yourself a marathoner.......

If you didn't get a chance to watch the 2006 New York City Marathon in person yesterday, you missed out. There's nothing quite like watching elite runners zip by and throngs of runners from around the world run through the streets of New York. Some of our photos from yesterday are above in the slideshow, but there are many, many more photos out there. Our photos are mostly capture the strange outfits we saw......

Nothing reminds us of how sedentary the blogging life is like watching a marathon. This is especially true when we see folks without legs running on prosthetic limbs or flying by in wheelchairs without even breaking a sweat. But Gothamist Health did get to be part of the action again this year, somewhat, working at the medical tent at the 15 mile mark. Most runners who stopped by just needed a little Vaseline and a......

For the first time since Tegla Laroupe in 1994 and 1995, the New York City Marathon has a repeat winner. Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia repeated her victory last year with a time of 2:25:05. Prokopcuka was so far ahead of 2nd place women's finisher Tatiana Hladyr that she was blowing kisses to the throngs of spectators as she approached the finish line in Central Park. Prokopcuka finished a full minute ahead of Hladyr. Deena......

Jelena Prokopcuka won her second ING NYC Marathon in a row, finishing at 2:25:05, while Marilson Gomes Dos Santos of Brazil won the men's race with a time of 2:09:58. Latvian Prokopcuka broke away from the other elite women's runners from the start of the race in Staten Island, closely following the women's pace-setter, and never gave up the lead. Tatiana Hladyr of the Ukraine finished second and Catherine "Catherine the Great" Ndereba finished......

Lance Armstrong says tomorrow's marathon is the "anti-Tour de France." He's hoping to clock in at 3 hours, though the longest he's run is 16 miles. The NY Post covered the press conference: "When asked if he would feel safe surrounded by 37,000 runners, Armstrong said that after getting thousands of death threats during the Tour de France, he was not concerned about New York." Take note: NYC safer than France's bike country. Great......

Brooklyn Ramblings pointed us to this great elevation map (PDF file) of the marathon route on the official marathon website. We all know that the Verrazzano Bridge is the highest point of the race, but that's early in the course. The bumps at 8 (around Fort Green where the courses combine), 16 (the Queensboro Bridge), and 24 (Central Park) are probably harder to summit. The Daily News looks at the crazy costumes worn during......

Here at Gothamist theater, we tend to let the weather affect our views on shows to see more than is perhaps logical, though when there’s so much to see, at least it gives us some way of deciding. Anyway, this being the case, naturally outdoor shows have a special place in our heart, and this week one of (if not the absolute) the first outdoor shows is on: the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre’s The Bass Saxophone,......