I hadn't realized this, but apparently some time ago, Ken and Barbie — one of the world's most popular couples — broke up! It seems Barbie has a new boyfriend now, a fellow named Blaine. Here's a photo of the love birds released by their agent Mattel in 2003. Apparently friends and fans are not happy about the end of the nearly 50 year union between Barbie and Ken and have been posting angrily about it over at Amazon, as you can see in the customer reviews at Amazon for Barbie's New Boyfriend Blaine with Boogie Board, Surfer Gear & Exclusive 'Cali-Zine' Magazine. A reviewer named Kris writes:

Don't worry ladies. I'll deal with this Blaine guy for you…Once he's gone, Barbie can get over her little mid-life crises and get back with Ken. Then all will be right in the world again.

People really don't deal with break-ups well, do they? Even when the 'people' doing the breaking up are 11" plastic dolls.

In what will hopefully be last NYC Marathon-related post for a while, here's a photo of me finishing the race. Unfortunately at the end there I got jammed up with that older gentleman in blue, so they didn't get a very clear shot of my triumphant completion of the course. I look very serious. I think that's because I didn't see that words "FINISH" on the banner and wasn't 100% the thing was finally, really, actually, over!

photo by Jason Kottke, http://www.kottke.org

It was a bit weird this morning to wake up and not have to worry about the marathon. It was also a bit weird to wake up and not be able to bend my knees. I'm sure they'll recover with time though. Jason snapped the above photo early in the race in Brooklyn, around mile 4. You can still see the Verrazano Bridge in the distance. I had lots of energy at this point and you can see all of us smiling as we spotted our first cheering friends.

Additional marathon photos can be found all over. Gina, who waited for us in Brooklyn at Fourth Avenue and 14th Street, captured a lot of nice shots of the day, and also my favorite photo of us racing. So artsy!

You can peruse all the Flickr photos with the tag "nycmarathon" and see the few I managed to snap before I gave up trying. The sun was too bright to see the screen and after a while I just wanted to run.

Photographer Rion Nakaya captured Faces of the Marathon for the Morning News. And there are plenty more photos of Marathon finishers on her site that are worth checking out.

All in all, it was a glorious day for running. Thanks to everyone for coming out and cheering us on.

I've survived the NYC Marathon and actually had a pretty smooth time running it. More later, now I'm just recovering on the sofa. Also later a photo of my medal.

The marathon is looming on the horizon. I've been eating lots of carbs and went for my final short run this morning. I feel ready! And I can't wait to just get out there and run and have it done with. One of my running mates David has created a course map in Flickr for folks to annotate with their location. If you'll be cheering and have a Flickr account, please post your location on the Marathon Course Map. If you don't have a Flickr account and plan on watching and cheering, tell me your location in the comments so I can listen/look for you. I'll need all the support I can get, especially in the Bronx around mile 20. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of what I plan to wear so you can pick me out of the crowd. Thanks for all your support, it really means a lot and will help me get through the hard times knowing folks are thinking of me and cheering me on.

But if we wake up tomorrow and history repeats itself, the BBC addresses some basic questions with, Q&A: What if there is no clear winner? I hopeful that this year the election will be decided by the voters and not the Supreme Court, but after the 2000 debacle (and reading about electronic voting machines throwing errors), I'm not so optimistic.

There is some great advice in the comments of my post Marathon training advice. I realize it's more marathon race running advice than training advice, but still, close enough. Also, for those still paying attention to that thread, I posted a new comment asking about the use of petroleum jelly. Thanks to everyone for their advice and encouragement!

I've been building up my distance lately as marathon day (or M-day) draws closer. Last Sunday I had a beautiful 10 miler out to the ocean and back, which you can see here on my map of my running route. I'll keep adding to this as my weekend runs lengthen. For my 20 miler, I'm thinking about going out to Siasconset, around to Polpis and back home. And maybe if I go totally insane, I'll run out to Great Point and back. But that seems unlikely.

Megnut reader Joanna emailed today with a report of hawks near MIT. No, not Donald Rumsfeld-type hawks, but real live hawks, the bird kind! Someone has even set up a web cam of the hawks so that others can watch the baby hawks grow up.

Outside my window at work overlooking Mass Ave in Cambridge, lives a family of red-tailed hawks – a mama hawk, a papa hawk (smaller than the mama) and two chicks, hatched on Easter Sunday…According to some online research, these chicks will fledge in about another 2-3 weeks. They are just starting to practice stretching and flapping their wings, and often tease each other by poking each other and spreading their wings over the other.

For those of you who will be checking in on the web cam, she also cautions:

P.S. A word of warning to vegetarians – we often see them feeding on rats, squirrels, and pigeons and it gets pretty gruesome at times.

Ah, nature! And in Kendall Square, no less.

Update: apparently the cam is only active Monday through Friday from 9-5 (EST).