“You get to the start line. This is it. You got to do it now. You’ve come all this way. 450 miles in training. Now you got to go.”

These thoughts fluttered through the mind of Schuyler, a Christ Church sophomore, as he approached the start line for the New York City Marathon last Sunday.

In his Cavalier Nation t-shirt, Schuyler ran the entire 26.2 miles in 6 hours, 56 minutes and 2 seconds.

“My motivation was just to finish and get it off my bucket list” he said.

Last January, Schuyler decided to run the marathon for a charity called Fred’s Team. Fred’s Team is a fundraising program for a cancer center in New York where his grandmother was treated for leukemia.

“I wanted to help them out and raise some money”. He did just that as he managed to raise $6,000.

Schuyler began training last July.

“My training was four days a week: three short runs about five miles each and then a long run (about) 8-20 miles.” He did this type of training for the three months prior to the race.

November 2, the day of the race, came too quickly for him. It was a gloomy day in New York. The temperature was in the forties, but the forty mile per hour winds put the wind chill down into the thirties.

Schuyler and his step-father began their run at 10:55 am. The race began on Staten-Island and immediately crossed over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. The race continued all the way through Brooklyn, into Queens and over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan.

In Manhattan, around mile 17, Schuyler says he hit the wall. His entire body was ready to give, and he desperately wanted to quit. Schuyler had come too far to give up. Behind the motivation from the fans that lined the streets and from his step-father, Schuyler went on.

“The fans, (they’re) big. They give you high fives and food. That really helps, I couldn’t do it without the people there.”

After fighting the urge to quit, Schuyler continued on the course into the Bronx for a little over a mile before returning to Manhattan. The course then went back through Manhattan to the finish line in Central Park.

As he approached the finish line, Schuyler mustered up all the energy that remained in him after 26 miles and ran as fast as he could. At 5:51 pm, he crossed the finish line, making all of his dedication and perseverance worthwhile.

“You get over that line; you get your medal, you take a picture and it’s pretty great,” an elated and nostalgic Schuyler said.

“The medal means finishing and achieving. Set a goal and you can reach it if you put your mind to it.”

Schuyler says that he will run other marathons in the future. The Chicago Marathon is one he has in mind because his step-father has run it in the past. However, no matter which marathon he runs, none will be quite as memorable as his first one in New York City.