Happy New Year everybody!
I hoped you watched our AC 360 New Year's Eve special last night. For the second year in a row, I ran in the annual Central Park four-mile road race that begins at the stroke of midnight. That for me is a challenge enough. I am an avid in-line skater, but had never run in a race in my life until last year's New Year's event.
What makes this especially challenging for me is to talk coherently on live television while I'm doing the run. But it sure is fun.
More than five thousand runners (many in creative costumes) were in the park hoping to kick off a healthy new year by literally starting the race at the stroke of midnight.
Now, the course record is just shy of 19 minutes. I didn't threaten that mark. I knew going into the race that I wouldn't finish before we went off the air at 12:30pm. I was thinking of skating the race so I could finish by the end of the show, but race organizers were concerned I might steamroll the runners, so we all agreed that was a bad idea.
So I ran...and drumroll please...I finished at 12:49am. Now, my time was actually a bit quicker than 49 minutes because I had to slow down a few times to fiddle around with our microphone and audio gear. But it sure seemed a lot of people were passing me!
Neverthless, it was fun and festive and I want to thank my producer Susan and my camera crew Frank and Brian for hanging with me. I also want to wish all of you a great 2008!
-- Gary Tuchman, National Correspondent
