A group of us from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team switched on the television last Sunday to find a full scale battle going on at mile 24 between Paula Radcliffe and Gete Wami for the women's New York City Marathon. This was Paula's first race since taking some time off competitition to have a child, and here she was up against her old rival Gete Wami - the two of them have been having finishes like this over cross-country distances since the early nineties. The two of them were together going into the last mile, and it was very tempting to wonder if Gete's sprint finish was not going to carry the day, but when she made her mover with 800m to go, Paula just dug into those superhuman reserves she seems to have and never looked back until the finish line.

The men's contest was an equally absorbing affair with Kenya's Martin Lel outkicking Abderrahim Goumri to win in a time of 2:09:04. However, it was arguably eclipsed by the US Olympic Trials which were held the previous day, due to Ryan Hall's phenomenal 2:09:02 time. Ryan broke away from the field at mile 16 - he described the feeling of the second half-marathon as being like one of his training tempo runs with his wife accompanying him on the mountain bike; with a time of 1:02, they must be some tempo runs! Sadly, the race was marked by the tragic death of Ryan Shay, who was much loved in the US marathon community.

With all that action, it was easy to overlook cycling legend Lance Armstroong's participation in his second marathon - he came home in 2:46, 13 minutes better than last year. Not bad for someone weighing 173 pounds and just doing the marathon for a recreational challenge...