In exchange for paying for entry and completing a marathon length activity within 8 hours in the second half of October, I get to pay again to run the actual ny marathon.

 So this was a somewhat unpleasant training activity that gets me guaranteed entry into a future ny marathon. It wasn't that awful and the training gave me some structure for workouts this fall. But it is nice to be done.  Josh ran about 10 miles with me and the kids did the last 3 miles with me. They were on their bikes and much faster than I was. On the plus side, it was much easier and hurt a lot less than the trail marathon I did a few years ago.