NYC Marathon Memories
The New York City marathon is usually run a few days after Election Day. I’ve always appreciated the timing. Before I moved from the city this summer, I thought of the marathon as a welcome bit of inspirational diversion. It comes a few weeks after the leaves have lost their brilliant fall colors and the afternoons have become dark. Of course, for an independent, Catholic, conservative, Election Day in New York City is its own brand of dreary. The thought of five cold, gray months stuck in a city where everyone hates you is sometimes too much to bear. Depression’s little tentacles begin to creep.
Then comes that first Sunday in November.
I first “ran” the NYC Marathon in 1995. I was on assignment for my hometown newspaper, the Staten Island Advance. I was paired up with a blind, one-legged man visiting from Thailand who was going to run 26.2 miles through five boroughs with a prosthetic leg. While performing this heroic and triumphant feat, he was accompanied by an athlete from the Achilles Track Club. Achilles athletes volunteer to train for the marathon and then run with handicapped racers.
I was supposed to meet this pair at the starting line on the Staten Island-side of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, watch them take their first remarkable steps, and then head back to the office. But I couldn’t leave. I ran over the bridge with them, talking, walking, jogging the whole way. The crowd’s reaction to this man and his pure delight at their support made me want to stay with him for a little longer. And then longer still. By the time we crossed the Pulaski Bridge separating Brooklyn from Queens, I knew I wouldn’t be turning back. Because I wasn’t officially entered in the race and therefore wasn’t wearing a bib with a number on it, race officials shuffled me off the course just before the finish line.
I ran the race for real the next year. Prior to the 1996 marathon, I’d never run more than 12 miles. I got bored. Yet somehow I managed to finish in 4 hours 20 minutes. In case you don’t know, that’s nothing to be especially proud of; it’s marginally better than fast walking the whole thing. Still. I didn’t walk, and, despite taking about 16 Advil around Mile 18, it was the most life-affirming thing I’d done up until that point. New York is the best city ever for love, adulation, humor, and, when it feels like showing it, generosity. I was handed orange slices in Brooklyn, cookies in Queens, and I shuffled along to buoyant Sinatra bands in the Bronx.
The reception runners get coming off the 59th Street Bridge onto 1st Avenue in Manhattan is breathtaking. As far as your eye can see, the race course is lined with people, sometimes 10 rows deep. After being whipped side to side by the violent and exhausting bridge winds, the blast of fame you feel from the roar of the crowd makes you forget you’ve just run 16 miles and are about to run 10 more.
Like the previous year, I was expected to write about the experience. While the adrenaline rush carried me to the finish line, it did not carry me gracefully to the office. I perched in pain at the edge of the office chair, shivering and trying to think and type. I battled cold symptoms and knee pain for the next 4 months.
I decided to run again in 2006 and was lucky enough to get in through the lottery. I ran in honor of a dear friend from college who’d been killed in Iraq a week earlier. He left an infant son, about the same age as my second child. I wore a T-shirt bearing my friend’s name and the date of his death. The love, attention, and cheers I received as observers read and absorbed the message on my T-shirt kept a lump in my throat the entire way. I sent the T-shirt and medal to my friend’s wife and young son along with a note saying that hundreds perhaps thousands of strangers in New York City thought of Dave that day.
This is the first year since 1995 that I won’t be running, covering, or watching the marathon in person from a 1st Avenue sidewalk. Before we moved, we lived along the route. One thing I found notable as a spectator was that, by the time they reach Manhattan, the elite men and women have often caught up to the wheelchair athletes who get an earlier start. This always moves me to tears. Many of these guys are veterans who have lost legs. Watching them power their wheelchair/bicycle hybrid alongside Kenyans who have never seen anything like The Greatest City in the World yet fly through the streets like weightless sprites, is something you won’t experience elsewhere.
New York City, for all its many, many faults, is perfect on this first Sunday in November.
- Comment (23)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Aug '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Peter was right when he said (on an early podcast) that you write like and angel.
Thank you
May '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
It's hard to smile and think of a 4-hour run at the same time. I'll take your word for it.
May '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
My mother (Verity Lunesta Smith) used to run hundred-mile tournaments over the Rockies. Now she can't walk straight. A couple of miles might rouse the endorphins, but any more than that ruins your knees. I mean, the whole point of the Battle of Marathon story was that the messenger died.
Though there is a nifty quote from the Seabiscuit story about Man of War. He clipped his hoof in the starting gate, spraying lurid spouts of blood. Yet ran a mile and a half and won anyway.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
I always hated the NYC Marathon. It completely jammed up the streets in my neighborhood - you just couldn't go anywhere.
And then, for hours and hours afterwards, there were clumps of participants wandering around euphorically, wrapped in those disposable foil blankies, clogging up the sidewalks.
I always referred to them as "heroic baked potatoes".
Edited on Nov 7, 2010 at 1:47pmRe: NYC Marathon Memories
Kennedy, I am dying of jealousy. That's a pipe dream of mine. Live in Boulder, run all day long, and race crazy distances. Amazing. Just curious, considering her injury(ies). Does she regret the racing?
May '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
The best part about marathons is that ability plays such a minor part for most runners; the race and everything leading up to it is all about soul. And that makes sense, since people generally fight themselves to finish, and their motivations are so different from adversarial sports. Every age and body type is on call, and the results aren't what you'd expect. There's nothing more humbling to a twenty-something than getting passed on your left by a 60 year old grandma and your right by a 5'6" 200 pound retired cop. My sharpest memory is grabbing a dixie cup of homebrewed bitter at mile 21 from a five-slapping Padres fan while a middle school band played the "Chariots of Fire" theme on repeat (the truest endurance?). And if you sacrifice some seconds to break out a couple dance moves...oh man, you don't wanna know.
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Somehow, this doesn't surprise me, Kenneth. Too many danged happy people. But I still think there's a little joyful seed -- maybe just an atom -- buried deep in your curmudgeon exoskeleton. Am I right?
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Louie, what a wonderful, nice thing to say. You made my morning.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Ursula Hennessey
Somehow, this doesn't surprise me, Kenneth. Too many danged happy people. But I still think there's a little joyful seed -- maybe just an atom -- buried deep in your curmudgeon exoskeleton. Am I right? · Nov 7 at 12:03pm
Oh, I'm anything but joyless or misanthropic. I just don't relate to mass sport. Perhaps it reminds me too much of Nuremberg.
Your fond memories of the Marathon are yours to hold dear and I'm glad you feel that way.
My memories of the Marathon consist of massive disruption of my neighborhood, policemen and Marathon factotums telling me where I could not tread and streets littered with paper cups, Power Bar wrappers and discarded foil blankies.
All depends on one's perspectives.
May '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Ursula Hennessey
Kennedy, I am dying of jealousy. That's a pipe dream of mine. Live in Boulder, run all day long, and race crazy distances. Amazing. Just curious, considering her injury(ies). Does she regret the racing? · Nov 7 at 11:57am
A little. When she gets all sore and stuff. But the memories? Nawww. Do we ever?
I will push the boundaries (yet again) by applauding your response to Kenneth, which warmed the scabby cockles of my shriveled heart, and pointing out that none of us are truly evil, especially the ones who swan about in silk cloaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMRALxZ7PKY
Aug '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Glad to hear it, I hoped it would.
I have spent the year immersed in A.J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell so my tuner is set for well crafted descriptions of life in the Big Apple.
I recommend Mitchell's collection Bottom of the Harbor, especially Mr. Hunter's Grave, which is set on Staten Island.
May '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
In the early nineties I used to run the Cleveland and Columbus marathons, and then last fall, after a 15 yr layoff, I decided to get back into it, at Niagra Falls. What a nightmare! It's a beautiful route--starts in Buffalo, goes over the Peace Bridge, follows the river and ends at the falls--but the feet can't take it anymore. They were on fire the last ten miles. Stinks to get old. Really, really stinks.
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
I know it, Scott. I mentioned that I did 4:20 at age 25 while never training more than 12 miles. At age 35? I trained religiously (plodding along at 5 a.m., 4 days a week for 4 months) but managed to add 30 minutes to my time. Frankly, I was pretty happy overall. The training made it so that I ran a steady (if slow) pace the whole time, and I had no pain. Felt totally fine the next day. I guess that means I could have gone harder. Well, that's what 2016 is for. I'm going for the Every-10-Year marathon thing.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Great post. I enjoyed every word.
For Me, I don't recall having ran anywhere. That's why Americans have cars.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
"I always hated the NYC Marathon."
"....or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,"
Hym, does Kenneth "hate" the First Amendment to Our Constitution?
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Louie Mungaray I have spent the year immersed in A.J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell so my tuner is set for well crafted descriptions of life in the Big Apple.
I recommend Mitchell's collection Bottom of the Harbor, especially Mr. Hunter's Grave, which is set on Staten Island. · Nov 7 at 2:46pm
Interesting duo. I may pick up Mitchell on your suggestion. I just read up about him. Sounds great. Thanks.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Jimmy Carter: "I always hated the NYC Marathon."
"....or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,"
Hym, does Kenneth "hate" the First Amendment to Our Constitution? · Nov 7 at 4:44pm
That's a huge stretch, there Jimmy.
Well, what have I learned here today?
That I can speak candidly here about almost any political issue without being subjected to rank calumny. But God forbid I voice my opinion about two decades of experience on the receiving end of a disruptive sports event that gobbled up millions of dollars of local taxes, which consistently left my neighborhood looking like the aftermath of an Obama rally and Central Park smelling like a urinal- then I'll be attacked as a joyless misanthrope, an evil curmudgeon and an enemy of the Constitution.
Heh. Guess it's a hot-button issue.
Edited on Nov 7, 2010 at 6:28pmMay '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Ursula Hennessey
I know it, Scott. I mentioned that I did 4:20 at age 25 while never training more than 12 miles. At age 35? I trained religiously (plodding along at 5 a.m., 4 days a week for 4 months) but managed to add 30 minutes to my time.[...]
An embarrassing admission to cheer you up: At 42, I added 2 hours to my early-twenties time, 3:13 became 5:20. A little old lady felt sorry for me, asked me if I'd like a treat, went back to her house to get it, and easily caught up to me with a handful of oatmeal raisin cookies.
Edited on Nov 7, 2010 at 5:39pmNov '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
Ursula, this was absolutely beautiful. I'm going to share it with my marathon-running sister, who is a sicko like you. ;-)
She's a Left Coaster, so I've only gotten to see her run and be her own personal support team one time--and that was last year's Death Valley marathon. She was the first female finisher, in fact! It was, I would assume, very...*different* from NYC in every conceivable way. Wonderful experience for both of us. Runners are, on the whole, the most amiable folks I've met.
She has run in Boston but never expressed any interest in NYC. Perhaps your lyrical prose will change her mind.
Jul '10
Re: NYC Marathon Memories
My final comment here: I now realize that my initial hasty post was ill-crafted.
I should have said I "dreaded" the Marathon, rather than "hated" it.
Hate is just too strong and provocative of a word.