Finally the race started. The Verrazano was much less crowded than I thought, and I had plenty of room to dribble. I was still a little nervous doing something crazy like this in front of so many people. But then something great began to happen. People who didn’t even know me would...

For the four months that I trained for the New York City Marathon, it wasn’t quite registering in my mind that I would actually be running in it (never mind dribbling it with a basketball)! Then, on the Thursday night before the race, my friend Ron (who ran with me) and I had to...