Race Report: New York City Marathon

I haven’t written or posted much over the last week. For days after the marathon, I would wake up every morning re-living the race, for better or more likely, for worse. I can’t admit to obsessing about it, but it was on my mind so much I didn’t really feel like writing about it. I guess I’m over it.

Hmmm. This will probably be a long one.

The weather was pretty nice on race day, though it always seems a little colder than I’d like it; everybody else called it ‘perfect’. Which means I’m in the minority by liking warmer races, but that sometimes works to my advantage. Anyway, the sky was clear, there were a few breezes, and the temperatures ranged from the upper 40s through the mid-50s.

We had been warned well in advance that the primary transportation to the start would be delayed by construction on the lower level to the Verrazano Bridge. The organizers ‘strongly suggested’ that we find alternate transportation, more specifically the Staten Island Ferry. Every year, most runners go to midtown and the New York Public Library to catch one of the dozens and dozens of chartered buses available between 4:30 and 7AM. The buses drive through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and across the Verrazano to Staten Island, and the trip typically takes a half hour or so; they leave extra early to get the estimated 30,000 Manhattan-based runners to the 10:10AM start on time. With the construction on the bridge, everybody was heading to the ferry, but I decided to get to midtown early and take my chances with the buses. Plus we all pre-paid a non-refundable $20 for the bus ticket when we registered, and although I can handle losing twenty bucks, it’s annoying that the organizers ask you to pay in advance for transportation they can’t guarantee and later advise you not to use.

So of course, I get up at 4AM (which is easier than normal since we gained an extra hour at the end of DST that night), out the door at 4:45, on the subway and at Grand Central by 5:10. And immediately on a bus. Warmly-padded, cozy, big-ass, tourist-on-the-way-to-see-‘Mamma-Mia’ type bus. I could’ve stayed there all day. Then a nice, quiet ride across the boroughs despite the loud, nervously chattering ladies sitting behind me. Of course, the bridge construction was one lane that barely caused a ripple in traffic, and we arrive by 6. Yes, that’s four hours of waiting (and camping) in Fort Wadsworth, and even with the end of Daylight Savings Time only 4 hours ago, it’s still dark out.

Ft. Wadsworth is a big, flat, fenced-in space with one and two-story military-style buildings dotted around it, and it sits right at the toll booth entrance to the Verrazano Bridge. The race organizers have used it as long as anyone can remember, and it gets the Staten Island portion of the day over and done with while everyone sits there or stands in bathroom lines for hours before the start. It’s usually chilly, and no matter how warmly you dress, you still end up getting cold because you’re not moving around much. But there’s lots of coffee and water and bagels, and they all that makes you end up in the port-at-johns, which sure is one way to kill time.

So I find a spot near my Blue Corral bag drop-off area, and I sit with my back against a street sign, watching enough Europeans to fill an airport, walk by. When they say that the NYC Marathon is international, they’re not lying. Out of the 40,000 that got in, nearly 21,000 are from outside the U.S., and most of those are from The Continent. So you hear French and Italian and Kazak all day, and you’d swear Borat himself was standing behind you, all ready for ‘high-five’. Which brings me to another little issue that bugs me, and sorry in advance if this is a bit non-PC.

Many Europeans have no sense of personal space. I didn’t say ‘all Europeans’, so give me a break, but I have to say when I’m in a race, or even in line somewhere where there are lots of my cousins from the Old World, there’s an in-your-faceness about it that can get a little too close for comfort. You can say that Americans have issues about not being too touchy-feely, or needing a personal space around them (because we have tons of space here that allows for that), and perhaps you’d be right. Myself included. But there’s a type of blissfully ignorant euro-pushiness and aggressiveness that I experience at some races, and I can see it coming from miles, or make that kilometers, away.

Case in point: I’ve run the Paris Marathon a few times, and every time I’m on the receiving end of more than the normal quota of elbowing and pushing. The start of the race is on the Champs Elysée, a six-lane avenue that’s converted into a crowded mass of sardines facing southeast into the center of town. There are no corrals, and it’s first-come, first-jammed into the crowd. First time I was there, I found myself being happily pushed by French guys who wanted me to move forward. Problem was, we were packed like Vienna sausages in a can, and there was nowhere to go since everyone was packed in for hundreds of feet ahead of us, too. Didn’t stop monsieur behind me from taking his entire forearm and pushing me to move up the only two inches of space available. I turned to give him a ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look, and he barely responded with that patented French look that lies somewhere between distraction and personal misery. I realized then it wasn’t personal, he was just raging against the injustice of the tyranny of ‘the people’ trampling on his freedom, because, well, that’s part of his culture. This happened again and again, and continues to this day as I feel a French or Italian runner attempt to push me out of the way in search of greater glory. You can’t fight it any more than you can ask Americans to stop driving SUVs.

With this cultural awareness present in my mind, I continued to sit while trying to not shiver, waiting while the minutes ticked by, watching French and Italians bumping into me without a hint of self-awareness that they were walking over me. A nice-looking elderly Dutch couple decided to stake claim to the three square feet directly beside me on the grass, and after sitting, proceeded to converse as if I wasn’t there. Oh, I was there, I was about four inches away, but they didn’t seem to care, so why should I? So with my head (and ears) placed exactly between theirs, they discussed the day and everything else as if I were completely invisible. Again, no rudeness intended, just obliviousness.

After the unscheduled Dutch lesson, I was off to port-a-john visit #4, and then off to check my bag at the Blue Corral UPS trucks parked nearby. Unhappily, it was more like thunderdome; after reconfiguring the waiting area this year, the organizers had in their infinite wisdom created only one way in and one way out for the 20,000 or so runners checking blue or orange-marked bags, it was a fifteen-foot wide entrance for all traffic. The result was the worst logjam I’ve ever experienced before or during a race, thousands of runners unable to move in or out. It would take five minutes just to move five feet, and your UPS truck was waaaaaaay over there, if that was indeed the one you had to use (each runner had to go to a specific, numbered truck). So that ‘I’m not going to make it to the start on time’ sinking feeling starts to take over, even with an hour to go before the starting gun. I finally figure out that my own truck is about ten feet away and push myself (who’s being pushy now?) to freedom. I’m still amazed I made it out with under forty minutes to line up. But I know a lot of people were having nervous fits during that bag drop-off traffic jam, and I don’t blame them.

I line up in the Blues (how appropriate), and actually make it up a little further in the numbers because I’m planning to run with, and wearing a bib that says I’m with, the 3:15 pace group. No, I hadn’t lost my mind. I ran with the 3:20 pace group in Chicago before Dante’s inferno kicked in, and I’d been training to run a 3:10-3:20 most of the summer. Fast for me, and for some, I know, but I can try. Especially after running a 1:30 half a couple of months ago. Plus it’s my eighth NYC Marathon, and I know what’s ahead. No surprises for me on this course.

We head off onto the bridge for the final line-up, and I meet a guy from San Francisco running his first NYC. He’s really excited, and I can’t help but tell him about all the great neighborhoods ahead, and when to hold back and where the hills are. He has a map (!), and after I tell him that the Queensboro Bridge comes out on 59th St, and that by mile 25 you’ve returned to 59th St., he jokingly suggests we just keep going on 59th St. once we get off the bridge and get rid of those nasty miles 16-25. Later on, that would sound like a great idea.

So then President Mary W. from the NY Road Runners speaks and requests a moment of silence for Ryan Shay, putting things in perspective for at least a little while. After a Mariah Carey-influenced version of The National Anthem from 90s popstar Tevin Campbell, the cannon goes off, followed by the Sinatra recording of ‘New York, New York’. OK, I get it, it’s a classic, and nothing else will do, but it sure would be refreshing to hear one of those other oldie New York tunes instead (Grandmaster Flash, Nina Hagen, the Rolling Stones ‘Shattered’, for example).

Into the fray we go. The blue corral is lucky enough to be running on the top level of the bridge, so we get the best view. On our far, far left is lower Manhattan, and it looks like it’s ten miles away; maybe it is, but I learned long ago not to look into that light. ‘We’re running all the way to THAT?’ is about all you can think of while going uphill on the Verrazano.

Arriving in Brooklyn, the street party begins, and it’s vaguely insane. Residents have come out with signs, food, costumes, boomboxes, anything to celebrate with us as we move forward with the French and Italians and Kazaks. It’s so international you wouldn’t be surprised to see Klingons running. I won’t go into too much detail about the course itself, I certainly discussed it a previous post, but I’ll just say the New York City Marathon gets more ‘New York City Marathon-y’ every year. Make of that what you will.

So the minutes and the miles tick by slowly, and no sign of the pace team, they’d taken off like bats out of Hell’s Kitchen at the start. So I’m wearing my cheap orange-lensed sunglasses they handed out at the expo, and I don’t care, because everything looks kind of bright and happy like I’m on some gel-induced acid trip. My brain is saying: ‘Man, this shit is GOOD, where’d you get this shit, man? Shit’s good, man.’ Or something like that.

And before I know it, I catch up to the 3:15 pace team at mile 8, less than an hour into the race. There are about 20 runners in the pack, staying slightly under a 7:30 mile per minute pace like good boys and girls. I keep running with them, then I lose them again at a water station near the halfway mark. A mile or so later, I’m onto the Queensboro Bridge and still feeling, well, OK. I pass the 15 mile marker comfortably under two hours, and I’m ready for my close-up in Manhattan.

And I when I arrive on 1st Avenue, I find all the other runners are clinging to the left side of the course while thousands of spectators on the right are straining to see who’s coming through. My inner, European ham shoves his way through and lunges over to the empty center of the course, and I’m smiling and prancing and sharing stores of unknown carb-fueled love to all the spectators. In hindsight, it really was an embarrassing spectacle of self-promotion, but I gotta say too, when the crowd loves you, they let you know it. And I’m soaking it up like the running whore I am.

I rein it in after the hubris subsides, and make my way up 1st Avenue, all alone on the right hand side except for the adoring crowds. I knew it wouldn’t last, and I was depressingly correct. As I reached miles 17 and 18 I began to feel the fatigue, and experienced the creeping sensation of the 3:15 pace buffalo passing me. I knew the ‘digging deep’ portion of the day was coming up along with the Bronx. That’s OK, I’d already figured I could run the second half about ten minutes slower than the first and I’d still be happy.

Passing into the 20-mile markers I felt a bit more tired, but not horribly so. Just that ‘here we go again’ feeling that many of you out there know so well.

And then sometime after mile 22, my inner quad muscles turned to granite. Both of them. I couldn’t tell if it was an actual injury. But they forced me to stop at a water station and rub or even pound them; it started to look a lot more like my hands were defibrillators and I was yelling ‘clear’ before jump-starting. So there’s Mr. Look-at-Me, bent over slightly, trying to revive my upper thigh muscles while hundreds of runners pass by. And medical personnel hovering over, checking and suggesting I hit that station’s medical tent. More than once I replied that ‘I’m not that sick, I just need to get my quads back to normal’, and would continue to run in pain. Until the next water station/medical tent, where the routine would start all over. I was not happy.

And then there was that damn hill on Fifth Avenue. Even a cop asked me if I was OK, and I had to reply yes, because just by slowing down my fatigue began to subside, it was just my frickin’ quads (don’t worry, I’ll use ‘fuck’ later).

Into the park, finally. Mile 24 water station is up ahead, and I know people there. I finally hobble up and start telling anyone who’ll listen why I’m so slow and why my finish time is going to be embarrassing. Someone should’ve slapped me, it would’ve taken my mind off of my quads at least. And there I pull over, and rub and hit my legs and scream up to the sky like that scene in The Shawshank Redemption’. And then I continue on just as a passing Italian runner pushes me.

It’s a downhill from there, and my usual pre-finish smiles have given way to frowns and steely determination. I make it another five minutes and stop to let another hundred runners fly by. I’m finally on 59th St. and halfway to Columbus Circle with less than a mile to go and I see a medical tent on the right and pull over like a fucking Nascar driver (see? I told you) with a flat tire. Slightly-bored looking young ladies are the medical personnel, and they’re concerned and peppering me with questions. I’m ready for them to adopt me, but until then, I explain the situation and one of them decides the best thing I can do with less than a mile to go is drink some Gatorade. I say ‘fine’, and Sister Christian whips out the biggest big-ass gallon bottle of unopened red punch Gatorade anyone laid eyes on. This thing is so big that Sam’s Club wouldn’t stock it for fear of breaking the forklift. I let out an ear-splitting ‘HOLY SHIT!’ and the crowd erupts in laughter. In pain, pissed off, and looking like crap on a ritz, I still have them rolling in the aisles. I guess I can make it.

And you know I did. I didn’t stop, though I wanted to, dearly. I crossed the finish line a full twenty minutes later than my pace had predicted, my legs had just had it with me and all my ego/superego head games. They’re still pissed off, though we’ve started speaking since.

I shuffle to get my medal (Volunteer: ‘Congratulations! You did it’; Me: ‘S-T-F-U’). After you cross the finish line, they have us walk up the drives in Central Park to the UPS trucks parked one after another. There are 73 trucks. My stuff is in Truck 71. You guessed it, the first one is ‘Truck #1’.

I’m looking sad and dejected, head bent over, ‘life sucks, I suck, life sucks, I suck…’ is my mantra, and I’m clutching my mylar (security) blanket just like everybody else. I’m still getting pushed from behind by my European brothers, but I don’t care. Medical personnel are still asking me if I’m OK, and I say yes, I am, there are people out there probably worse off than I am right now. Until I encounter a hill midway through my walk, when a young lady asks me if I’d like some help walking a bit. After an intentional double-take, I find myself saying yes, and she’s got her arm around me and helping me walk up the hill. I know I could’ve done it without her, but she asked, and I think I just wanted to talk to somebody or anybody who would understand. And she listened as I told her how mean my legs had been today.


To make a long story longer, I finally got my bag after the 20-minute shuffle north and quickly discovered that it was very stupid to pack running tights instead of loose sweat pants. Yet another medical person watched me writhe on the ground as I slowly pulled the tights up over my evil legs. The caring medical person tried to stop me from scaring small children, but I was already cold and ready for another layer. I wanted to get the hell home.

Caught the bus, got a seat, and was home soon. All I could think was ‘today sucked!’, but my legs still hurt and that kept my mind off of the experience. Of course, I felt better later, but it was days before I was even close to normal, taking a lot longer than the last marathon. Wait, that was four weeks ago…

Next up: What Went Wrong With Brother Cranky. And Why He Should Get The Hell Over It.