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800-939-JUNK Livingston Runner Participates in Second New York City Marathon, Places in Top 2% of Women
No. 20 Vol. 12
A
My Life Publications • 973-809-4784
By Megan Roche lex Granata grew up on the soccer and lacrosse fields at Livingston High School. Always athletic, Granata knew that she had strong legs but never gave competing in marathons a thought. After randomly signing up to run a half marathon, Granata got bit by the running bug and never looked back. “I didn’t train for that first half marathon, I was basically going off muscle memory. I didn’t really prepare for it. I would run in college for stress relief and it led me to where I am today,” Granata said. “I signed up for that half and I did really well. I think I ran it in an hour and 42 minutes. I had maintained a good pace and I was happy I did it. But then, one of my friends had suggested running a full marathon.” To run the New York City Marathon, potential runners can go about earning a spot in various ways. There is a time qualification route, where times must be submitted and match up to or be better than a record. There is a charity run where you can run to raise money for a specific charity. Granata chose the third route, running nine races and volunteering at a race hosted by the New York Road Runners. “My first four mile run with the New York Road Runners, I ended up winning first place. I was the first woman in my age group to finish and I saw a message from someone on my Instagram telling me that I actually won an award for that. From that first race, it kind of kept on happening. I did a 5K and I got an age group award and I just decided that running was going to unravel to be whatever it was going to be,” Granata said. Granata’s first major marathon was Boston, something that a lot of people doubted she’d even qualify for.
December 2024
“So many people kept telling me how hard it would be to qualify to Boston. When I was running the Martha’s Vineyard Marathon, not only did I qualify to Boston, I beat the qualifying time by 15 minutes,” Granata recalled. When she recently ran the New York City Marathon, her mind was in marathon mode about 16 weeks prior. She had to train at various paces and allow her body the opportunity to build up to running 20 miles every weekend leading up to the race. On race day for this year’s New York City Marathon, Granata went into the race with a time goal, but that was it. “I tried as hard as I could to relieve any pressure on myself. I gave myself a time range so there wasn’t much room for crazy disappointment. I had goals of having fun, locking in, and hitting my time,” Granata said. After crossing the finish line in Central Park and celebrating with friends and family, Granata went about her day and back to her day to day life. It wasn’t until a friend noticed that her finishing time was among the top that she became aware of how well she truly did. “I sent my friend my official results and he started rattling off these percentages and I realized how insane my times actually were. There are over 55,000 people running and I’m not running thinking that I’m going to be in the top two percent. It’s so wild to see, it’s so cool. You are not thinking about doing something like that in the moment,” Granata said. Running for Granata may be a stress reliever, but it’s also allowed her to push herself beyond her physical limits. “I’m more competitive with myself than anyone else. I always want to set the bar high for myself. I just want to maintain my best times. I still get butterflies before every
Alex Granata runs in the New York City Half Marathon
race and that’s how I know that I care. If I wasn’t a little bit nervous, even with everything I did through my training, what am I standing there for?” Granata said. Now having participated in all three World Major marathons (Boston, Chicago, and New York) in the United States, Granata has her eyes set on the three international World Major marathons (London, Berlin, and Tokyo).