Napoleon Ostlund

I am so excited to run my first marathon with my breast cancer−survivor mother, who is also running her first. She ran many NYRR Mini 10K races during the 1980s, and I used to play with her medals when I was a little girl. I began running in college when I studied abroad in Italy—I loved running outdoors. I did my first half-marathon in 2012 and was inspired by other runners who were training for a marathon. I had always thought that a marathon was out of my league, but these people seemed so normal! So I set a goal to run the marathon when I turned 26—a year for each mile of the marathon—and I did it in May.

I work as the chief medical officer of the CEDIMAT hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. As a critical care physician, I routinely tell my patients to exercise, and yet for a long time, I did not. Last year, I decided to start running again. Once I got the news that I’d been accepted into the TCS New York City Marathon, I set a plan and got a trainer. I used to play soccer for the national team, so my memory cells reactivated when I began to run. I did 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) in September in 4:15—a horrible time. More recently, I did 21 kilometers (13 miles) in 2:38—it’s amazing what can happen. It took me six months to get in marathon shape. My stamina is much better now. I look forward to going to sleep early because I enjoy meeting my running mates in the morning. I never knew running was such a community-driven sport. Interestingly, none of my training mates speak to me about medicine. Running this race is like a grand finale, though I hope to repeat it. My father, a physician, did all of his medical training in NYC, and I received my specialty training at Mount Sinai. I used to live in the city full-time, and I’ve worked there part-time since 1999. I consider the city my second home.

We were a party of four adults and one baby, and we stayed in the one-bedroom "aqua" apartment on the third floor, and rented the additional bedroom (which is on the second floor). It was plenty of space for our group, and the apartment was clean and comfortably furnished. Shahla even had a high chair for the baby to use, which came in very handy! The neighborhood itself is pretty industrial but still safe and comfortable. When you're at the back of the apartment, you can hear some noise from the subway that runs two blocks behind the apartment. It was warm in New York while we were there, and the AC in the third floor bedroom was quite old and stopped working by the time we left. But we alerted Shahla and she mentioned getting a new one for her next guests. The bathroom was big and while it was a bit rough around the edges, it served us fine. The tub is huge! The kitchen was pretty sparse, but still ample for preparing simple meals. Just two suggestions: we could not open the windows in the kitchen, and it would be helpful to open those to get a good cross breeze in the apartment - it was a bit stuffy at times. The other suggestion is to have a lock on the door on the second floor landing to secure the suite from the rest of the building. Since we were sharing the bathroom, we had to leave the extra door to the bathroom unlocked, which was right at the top of the stairs to the third floor. Having a key to lock off the whole suite would make it feel a bit more secure. Overall it was a pleasant stay and Tom was very kind and helpful!