New York Marathon 2001 - a Recitation

Running the 2001 New York Marathon - a Recitation

Mile 18:
Heading north on 1st Avenue, Manhattan. Uncharted territory...I have never run this far. My thigh muscles ache, but my ankles or knees remain encouragingly strong. My legs have been pounding the pavement two-and-three-quarter hours and still have more than an hour to suffer. And I'm moving north, away from the finish line. Everyone speaks of "The Wall" at 20 miles, but I've hit a psychological one here at Mile 18.

The crowds are thinner now; the leaders have passed here over an hour ago, and few spectators are still willing to stand and watch us slower ones painfully wrestle our legs through the thick mire of a marathon's final third. I plow through the next two miles, mostly out of curiosity to find out what awaits at the twenty-mile "Wall".

What awaits is more of the same: leg muscle pain. But I make the button-hook through the Bronx, jogging northward over a low, steel-grated Harlem River bridge, onto wide, empty boulevards that wind around white-walled warehouses, and finally over the last of the race's five bridges back to Manhattan and onto the first southward heading of the course.

The day has been long and the sun is now low and in my eyes. I no longer see, or hear, the crowd. The avenue is long, it seems endless; the sun is shining almost directly up it, so I move over to the slightly shadier side of the street to avoid the effort of squinting. The psychological low-point has passed, the 18 milestone was a long time ago, I put my head down and keep pumping to finish...

6:30 am:
Three fried eggs, toast and jelly, orange juice, and coffee with milk and sugar. That and a couple of bananas will carry me to the start of the race in four hours. The bridge closes to all traffic at 8:00am for security reasons, so by 7:00am I've walked the mile from Sylvia's to the base of the Verrazano Narrows bridge on the Brooklyn side.

Relaxing before the start, Staten Island

Two other marathoners are waiting for the bus to take us over the bridge to the Staten Island military fort where we pass through security checks, stop for a pee, collect a bagel and coffee, perhaps take part in a prayer session, roam around the parking lots and playing fields, or stretch out in the mild morning sun on the dry grass under yellow-leaved trees. We have to wait now for the 10:50am starting gun, but it is a pleasant Sunday morning. Some have brought the Times, and I borrow a section to browse while eating my bananas. The New York Yankees have lost the 6th game of the baseball World Series in Phoenix; the deciding game will be played tonight.

The staging area in Staten Island is quickly filling with sweat-suited runners. Waiting lines are lengthening in front of the hundreds of portable toilets. I have been sipping water; I pee again...and yet again. Gradually, we start moving toward the starting corrals; I'm with a bunch of Mexican runners who are joking and taking pictures of each other. The accents of a handful of languages float through the air: Spanish, French, Dutch, German.

Finally, we step out onto the bridge toll plaza to hear the welcoming speeches and have a quick pee. Mayor Giuliani has flown in from the baseball game in Arizona to start us off; he'll fly back there for the seventh game tonight.

I'm not tense or nervous. It is a beautiful day, just warm enough with the sun and excitement. I'm confident with my training and carbohydrate-loaded leg muscle cells. Running for more than two hours is no mystery to me, but the marathon distance will be double that.

A cannon booms and our unique New York City sightseeing voyage begins. The jog over the Verrazano is joyous. I try not to run too fast. Helicopters hover noisily overhead, and a boat spouts water in red, white, and blue jets below. I shoot a few pictures--it is not often that one gets to cross this bridge by foot.

I empty my bladder one last time before leaving the bridge at the 2-mile mark and entering the streets lined with cheering people. I used to live in the neighborhood, and I look for familiar faces. I pass a diner where we used to get pancakes after a night of revelry. We are on the long run up 4th Avenue, and I take a cup of water at the first ravitaillement station at Mile 3.

This is enjoyable. I am loping effortlessly, but I am careful not to run too fast; I've been warned about burning up too much glycogen and having none left at "the wall". Every 4 miles or so, I suck a sachet of energy gel, an artificially-flavored, thick pudding; without it I would be starving before the race is half over. I make sure to drink at each mile station.

Enthusiastic crowds line the sidewalks along the entire route, and in some neighborhoods the cheers rise in loud roars. Policemen and firemen sitting on their firetrucks encourage the runners who respond with thanks and applause of their own. New York City after September 11th is brimming with solidarity. Some runners have written on their jerseys the names of loved ones lost in the twin towers.

Other runners have written their own names on their T-shirts, and the crowd cheer them on by name. I seem to run at the same pace as someone named Jeff. After awhile, I speed up: the constant "Way ta go, Jeff!" and "Keep it up, Jeff!" is getting on my nerves. Occasionally we pass a rock band pounding out fuzz guitar rhythms.

The multi-cultural grab-bag of the city is obvious as we run from neighborhood to neighborhood. In one, the long forelocked, black-hatted Hasidic men line the streets where their daughters in thick dresses sit in long lines on the curb.

We run as a body, undulating like a giant, menthol-scented, multi-colored millipede scurrying from south to north across Brooklyn and Queens. The route makes several turns, and the direction changes are welcome diversions from the long straight avenues. We cross the Gowanus canal at the half-marathon mark. At one point my ankle takes a frightening twist on an uneven pavement surface, but the running burns out the tightness.

We climb onto the lower level of the 59th Street Bridge over the East River, and here, where no spectators allowed, we run in silence as we pass the 25 kilometer mark at more than 2 hours 20 minutes. I gauge my stamina, and I detect now a vague weariness. I sense that others are feeling the same. The Manhatten skyline is spread before us with the Empire State Building as tallest, and we can already hear the Manhattanites cheering. Arriving in the heart of the city energizes me as I circle down, around, and underneath the bridge. The mob noise is deafening, and I see before me a long First Avenue stretching endlessly northward to uncharted territory...

Harlem:
People are walking now; one is leaning on lamppost trying to be sick. I'm sure I pass the 23-mile mark, but then, nine minutes later, I pass it again! Nothing to do but swallow the disappointment, so I speed up. Three miles to go-- I'll have to run my 10-miler pace in order to make my four-hour goal for this marathon. At this point, I don't care. I know I will finish, and respectably enough, but my thoughts now are only to end it.

Each mile is longer than the precedent. We enter Central Park, and the brown autumn leaves shadow the late afternoon sun. I am meditating, blind to the crowd, just concentrating on keeping my legs moving. I pop out of the park for the brief stretch on 59th Street and know the end is not far. I start looking at the crowd again.

Most are cheering at the general flow of runners, now on their fourth hour, but occasionally I catch the eye of a mid-town spectator for a private glance. I am suddenly aware of my posture. The last few hundred yards are a blur, I'm already thinking of being able to stop this running.

And then I do.

Someone wraps an aluminum space blanket around me, and I clutch it around my shivering body. I shuffle with the crowd slowly along the park path to pick up my clothes and then meet my friends. I survived.