BY DEAN GREENAWAY

In his fourth race, Nicholas Clark completed the recent New York Marathon in his second best time ever, finishing in 3 hours, 52 minutes and 08 seconds. With 34,000 participants, New York was in stark contrast to his first marathon in 1991 in Botswana, which had 150 competitors.

"The atmosphere is just amazing having 34,000 people running the event. The organization is huge and the numbers of people on the street means it's a crescendo of noise from start to finish," Clark said Monday reflecting on the Nov 2 race. "You notice the miles just fly past because the crowd is cheering you on with their enthusiastic cheering."

In his New York debut, Clark said he knew the course was harder than those he ran before including the Disney World Marathon which he has done twice. "New York itself had a reputation of being a tough event," said Clark who set a goal of completing the 26.2 mines of pavement in under 4 hours. "I was really pleased to finish in 3:52. Four hours is sort of the mental barrier to show you are a runner rather than someone who just enjoys running." Clarke wasn't even a runner in High School or College. He took up distance running in his 20s with the Hash House Harriers, a world wide buddy group. One of his hash friends suggested going on a longer run and the seeds were planted to eventually do the marathon. When he came to the BVI, Clark said long distance running was more difficult. Three summers ago, Clark saw an ad about the Disney World marathon. While inquiring, he was told there were only 150 places left then decided to enter, merely six months before the race. "After I made the commitment, I decided I had to go through a training program and do it. Since I had so much fun doing that and the family enjoyed their Disney World vacation, we decided I'd do some more," Clark said of the event where he had a personal best 3:40 in his last race there.

Training for marathons on Tortola posed three challenges for Clark-heat, limited flat land and boredom doing the same route. "I get to see a lot of East End in the mornings," said Clark who did a 20 miler three weeks before New York. "From Hodges Creek Marina, I went to Beef Island Bridge and that's five miles round trip. From there, I went to the West End Dock which was another 15 miles and that took me under three hours including the hills. In doing that, I knew hopefully, I'd do a good time in New York." Clark said the biggest challenge in New York was to keep going when the terrain was getting a bit difficult including quite a gentle rise at mile 23. "But, there are so many people cheering and shouting that while you might stop for a minute and walk a little, there's so many people encouraging you to keep going that you have to get back on it and do it again." Clark will compete in his third Disney World marathon in January.