The New York City Marathon- Part IV
A couple of hours after the marathon, I sat on my couch staring blankly in front of me. Everything was quiet, and there was barely any light filtering in through the windows. The sun had barely broken through the cloudy skies for most of the day and now as the sun was setting. As I sat there, I felt the flush on my face and this heat pulsing through me. I reach in front of me and felt things creaking in my body as I delicately grabbed the beer in front of me and took a long sip. I didn’t want to look at my phone; I didn’t want to see any of the messages of congratulations.
About an hour before that I stood on the first of two trains that would take me home. Getting home from the west side of Manhattan is always a process that day. The streets are tough to navigate despite the fact that most people defer to the slow walking zombies in blue capes. Standing was easier at my body at that point, so when I first stepped through the doors, I elected to stand despite the fact that there were open seats. Next to me was a woman who had also finished the marathon. Her family surrounded her — husband, father and her daughter stood directly above her. Smiling at her and giving her words of encouragement. The father nodded at me and smiled at my blue cape and vacant gaze. I smiled back and at him and congratulated the family in return. The daughter was a division one runner, and she proudly stated that her mother had completed her 16th New York City Marathon. A family of runners who undoubtedly celebrated this first weekend in November like a holiday every year. These are the types of fleeting relationships and encounters you have when you run the marathon. As we were speaking the train began to fill up, my body began to heat up under the blue cape and the fresh clothes I had put on moments before while stripping down on Central Park South. I know the feeling, it is a combination of claustrophobia and my body beginning to shut down. The heat flashes through and then chills start running down my back. Thankfully, the train stops and the doors open so I can get off.
An hour before that I had been running down Fifth Avenue. Running may not be accurate. For the first time in a long time, I couldn’t sustain running so I would walk for portions and then begrudgingly run. At one point I saw a coworker who encouraged me and began running with me. A little further up, I heard the shouts of my sister and her kids. For the first time since I started doing this, I stopped running and walked over to them. I embraced each one of them. Thankfully, my sister has four kids, so I got both the joy of seeing them out there and needed the respite from running. As I traveled down Fifth Avenue and approached the turn into the Engineer’s Gate, I knew I was close to the Finish Line, but I was struggling to find my typical final push. Any hope of doing this at a time that I wanted to do it was over. I had stopped looking at my watch and the clocks along the course. In past years, seeing my family had given me that surge to the finish or at least I thought they were my fuel. This year my body wasn’t going to be fooled. I reached the water at mile 25, and despite the calls from the crowds, I slowed to take a couple of more steps walking. The finish line was not far, but now the people lining the path seemed like they were adding weight to my legs as opposed to pushing me to the end.
Half an hour before that I was desperate in the Bronx for a respite. I expected the crowds to dissipate in the Bronx. But they didn’t. So each effort to run that was interrupted by cramping in my legs and the fear that something had torn in my leg. Part me of wondered whether it would be better if Fifth Avenue would have emptied out because of the rain. I thought, and maybe part of me hoped, that my family wouldn’t be there. That may have been the most lucid moment in the 3:48:55 I spent out there that day. The moment when I realized that in years past I had never relied on the crowds or the energy of the day, I just leaned on those things. In the end, every one of these races had been about me, about the work I put in leading up to the day. And now I was being humbled because I hadn’t put in enough work.
Now I want to jump a couple of hours back before the race even started to when I was standing in Staten Island. Subconsciously I knew my body was unprepared, but I wanted to fool myself into believing that I could game this whole day. I tried to trick myself into believing that all these distractions could carry me 26.2 miles. I am one of those people who either consume things, or I get consumed by them, meaning I can’t just do things halfway. I fall hard for things, so it isn’t hard to figure out why I was so desperate to be standing there in Staten Island at 6:30 in the morning with no choice but to get myself to Central Park. I stood there and said to my friend Sabrina- “I have to get to the finish line or else I am not sure I can get home.” I should have know then that it was a bad sign. I never had those types of doubts or thoughts in the three prior years I was standing in the same place.
Standing on the Bridge before I started, I stood next to a pretty woman who I had seen at a couple of the training races. I decided to stay close to her because she had that look of looking for people who spoke a similar language and the nerves of the day. As we stood near each other waiting for all the initial ceremonies, people murmured to each other and smiled. Bodies are jumping up and down to keep warm and to expend some of that nervous energy. I was silent, focused on staying warm and wondering if I had felt a couple of drops of water. Suddenly there was a couple of blasts from the canon that seemed closer to us than in past years. The proximity caused all of us to jump. The pretty woman looked at me and smiled and said: “What the fuck?!”. I smiled back. We exchanged a couple of polite words. This was her third time, so her husband and her kids were likely not going to be waiting for her, and she understood. I thought about that. She had two kids waiting for her at home. She had given birth to children and yet still rallied her body back to run. I wondered whether the marathon had become a piker’s journey in comparison to what she endured carrying and birthing two kids. Once the race started, I lost sight of her on the Verrazano Bridge.
The two hours from Staten Island were the fun parts of the day. Those first sixteen miles seemed to be melt away. I kept having to whisper to myself to calm down while I was running through Brooklyn. You would think on the fourth go around I would be accustomed to it. But like I said I don’t things like that, I either consume or I get consumed by the moment and Brooklyn swallows me whole. Injured leg or not, I looked at my watch at the 8-mile mark and realized I had run faster than I wanted to but it was hopeless.
I was flying down Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, and I felt those crowds creeping in on me. The cacophony of horns, screams, music, and footsteps distracted me from everything going on in my legs and any doubts that might have been there. It is one of the few spots in the Marathon where you feel the crowds on top of you. This year I was trying to slow down, so I glanced around at the people who had spilled onto the streets and those who sat smiling on the stoop of those old Brownstones. I did think to myself that I need to come to this neighborhood on a day when I am not running. I realized at that moment that this year would be humbling because I tried to convince myself that the marathons before would somehow carry me to the finish line in the same amount of time that I had done in the past.
When the rain started to come down heavier, all it did was distract me from everything happening in my body. But it was very different from my standard running in the rain, which is usually pretty cathartic because I am on my own, early in the morning with no one else watching me. I feel like I am in my music video as the water drips over my face and down over my mouth. On the day of the marathon, I don’t have that privacy or internal machinations to drive me. People standing and smiling underneath of the umbrellas are watching me run. I thought maybe weather would discourage people from coming out to watch, but it didn’t. New York City seems to just stronger every year. Perhaps in these dark times, its things like running and marathons that can serve as the inspiration to endure. I reached the Queensborough Bridge, and I was covered in rain and sweat that were indistinguishably mixed together. I knew at that point that after sixteen miles my body would be operating on fumes and memories. I found one last push coming off that Bridge into the rumble of First Avenue.
I am wrapping up there because I don’t have the inspirational end to this story. If there is an allegory that comes from the 2017 Marathon, it is that I can never be too complacent or take for granted how important the training and health can be to do this the way I want to do it. I know it’s not a failure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be disappointing. Five years ago when I started, it was about finishing a marathon, but it wouldn’t be fair to use the same standard anymore. Like most things in life, I don’t get the rewards or results in running because I desire them but only when I have earned them. The result here is that I found the fuel for next year.
