Tarrytown-Bred Raji Mosa to Run the NYC Marathon on Sunday

Raji Mosa, 30, who grew up in Tarrytown and has plenty of family members and friends here rooting for him, will be among the 45,000 runners participating the New York City five-borough marathon this Sunday.

Though he now lives in Union City, New Jersey and does contractor work for the Army at Fort Dix, his lifelong extreme-sportiness is Tarrytown-bred. In high school here he excelled at football and wrestling. “Those two sports and what I got out of them have everything to do with why I can run this marathon,” Mosa said.

Not only does Mosa think he’ll be fine running the 26 miles (longer than he’s ever run), but he thinks he’ll do it in an enviable 3 hours and 15 to 30 minutes. After that, it’ll be “onto the next challenge” as he doesn’t think he’ll do another marathon.

Mosa questions doing this one in the first place. “It is not normal at all,” he said. “You have to pay $196 to go through agony.”

The “agony” begins at 5:30 a.m. when organizers will bus participants from Giants Stadium to the Staten Island starting line. The race begins in waves – with so many runners, they can’t all start at once – and Mosa happens to be among the first at 9:40 a.m. He was fortunate to be able to get in the race at all – “it’s very rare to be accepted for your first time in the lottery.”

Mosa applied to the lottery in November, 2010; he found out he could run in April, 2011; he started training in May. Training has involved progressively picking up mileage week by week from about 30 miles per week to 60 at his peak.

In the last few weeks, it’s been more about tapering down, and now for the next few days, Mosa will “rest and heal.” There’s also plenty of the stereotypical pasta: he plans to do some carb-loading on Saturday with a big breakfast, a big lunch, and then a light dinner.

Sleep is key – Mosa will be in bed tonight and tomorrow by 9 p.m., and he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since Sept. 18, to be exact. “I’m taking very seriously what I put into my body,” he said.

Mosa is excited for Sunday and “running my butt off.” Look for number 12197, flying by.