Last Sunday, after many years of running the New York City Marathon or watching it as a spectator, I sat in front of the TV with my best friend Alan Whitehead eating junk food and observed the one hour taped delayed broadcast of the event.

In New York City the marathon is a major event.  Millions of people line the streets of all five boroughs to witness the race. 125 countries watch the event on TV.  In Detroit like many other cities across the country it barely receives any notice. With few other road races getting TV coverage it doesn't develop a following like golf or auto racing.  Too bad because few sports capture the power of the human spirit the way a marathon does.

My intent was to watch the marathon from the standpoint of a casual observer but I found it impossible to do so.  I had too much history with the event.  Staten Island and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge conjured up all kinds of memories. Before I became an elite runner I remember trying to find a warm place to relax before the start. Often I would try to stay on the bus that dropped us off several hours before the race start. Using a little ingenuity, my friends and I would bag up our sweats for delivery at the finish line then search the many barrels of discarded warm ups for something that matched up and would keep us warm until just before the cannon was fired. We would then walk around the park checking out all the unusual happenings like the world's longest urinal and people dressed up like Gumby or the Statue of Liberty.

When I was an elite runner things were much different. We had our own accommodations and escorts to get us to a special start area on the bridge. One year a team of psychologists, after making their rounds calming down runners who had bridge phobias, was stationed in front of us to keep us in our corral.  By chance, I spied an attractive woman, whom I later met again at the finish line. One year later, she became my wife but that's a whole story in itself.

A few years later, as a media person, I was able to witness the start from a slew of double-decker buses. I was awed by the endless stream of people coming out of park and onto the bridge.  Sunday's TV helicopter aerial shot captured the enormity of what is about to take place. There is no other sporting event that can match this scale of magnificence.

Over 31,000 people hoped to reach Central Park's Tavern on the Green finish line. 10,000 of these runners were from 98 different countries and every state in the union was also represented.  First timers made up about one third of the field.

This year, observers witnessed something new.  The elite women were allowed to start a half hour ahead of the rest of the field. For the first time, women were the first to hear the roar of the crowds and pass through the finish tape without other runners surrounding them. The TV coverage focused on this and it was exciting to see these women playing the lead role rather than supporting cast.

Credit must go to the New York City Road Runners and director Alan Steinfeld for their creativity and the way they continue to create magic for all us involved in running.