The NYC Marathon 2006 a dream comes true.

It being my 25th marathon, I wanted to do really well and at least beat by personal best for NYC which was 3:19:45. So after Long Island marathon in May'06 running a great time 3:18 and qualifying for Boston Marathon'07 I knew preparing for NYC will be a challenge.
I had to also prepare other runners for the NYC half marathon in August so I would take two days to run with them during the summer. My running buddy Fazal did not run much this year but I got lucky and started training with Jaime and Leonard Palacios who is considered to be local elites. They would take me up to Rockefeller state park on Sundays so I can do lots of hill running and sometimes we would meet at Cunningham Park and do some speed work which was what I needed.
During my preparation I sustained a major injury which still have no idea what it is, I thought that it was a hernia but a cat scan and test did not revealed much,  I could not sneeze or cough without severe pain in my lower abdomen/pelvic but kept training giving all I had. Thank god that I could still run with it
Fazal had to fast for his religious festival Eid for one month so he just had one week to get back in shape for the marathon and by this time I was ready just tapering for the race. My mileage climbed to as high 90 miles per week with at least two 20 miler per week and two tempo runs.
Marathon day and we were there and I have to say that is  was the most advertisement I have ever seen for the NYC Marathon, there were lots of celebrities taking part including cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, chef-Bobby Flay, Arkansas governor-Mike Huckabee, actor - Tom Cavanagh, model -Kim Alexis, and gold medalist-Shannon Miller.  Not pay much attention to them leading up to the race just focusing on the elites like Paul Tergat, Stefan Baldini, Meb Keflezighi, Hendrick Ramaala and Rogers Rob and for the female elites Susan chepkemei,Tatiana Hladyr, Rita Jeptoo, Deena Kastor, Lornah Kiplagat, Cathrine the great Ndereba and defending champion Yelena Prokopcuka. It was a star studded field assembling for this race.
I had a better start this year my number was 3814 which put me in a good starting position. I was very focus and I did not fell on the Verazzano Bridge thank god for that but I did see a few runners go crashing down. My 1st mile into the race was 7:20 and I knew I had to pick up the pace; I was aiming for 7:00 per mile so after the 3rd mile I was right where I wanted to be at 21 minutes. At the start the green bib numbers take the lower level on the Verrazzano Bridge and the blue and red take the upper level. They both then merge on 4th avenue in Brooklyn early in the race within the mile 3 and 4. Right after merging I saw everyone screaming and supporters was pouring to the streets and I asked what was going on ahead and one guy replied that it was Lance Armstrong and his entourage.
I was able find myself right in the middle of his entourage running a very relax pace. To my surprise I saw a few of my running idols German Silva from Mexico running and pacing Lance and to the left of Lance there was a legend runner Alberto Salazar  and joining them was Joan Benoit Samuelson. Never in my life I expected to be able to run side by side with my marathon idols, was it the greatest feeling ever running a marathon and there was a live camera on us filming Lance. I did get some body gestures form Alberto nodding and German silver smiling and giving me room to run, at one point Lance looked over to his left and saw me hanging on to his side and just nodded while keeping up the pace.