Best
Marathon Ever.
Best
Experience Ever.
Until last weekend, whenever
anyone would ask me which of the marathons I had run I liked the best, I would
always answer, truthfully, that I really couldn’t say, that they were all
different, that I liked such and such qualities about this one and this and
that about another one. No
more. The New York marathon is my
favorite. Hands down. No contest. It was the best marathon I’ve run and one of the best all
around experiences I’ve had. Ever.
First, a little about New
Yorkers. The stereotype about New
Yorkers is that they’re loud and rude and in your face. The loud and in your face part is most
definitely true. But I think it’s
based on a certain comfort that comes from living in a place that’s so dense
and so full of different kinds of people.
If you’re not worried about people thinking less of you because you have
a different opinion, then why hold back?
Why waste everyone’s time with decorum and insinuation? Just throw it all out there. Once you scratch a tiny bit below the
surface, it becomes clear that New Yorkers are as kind and friendly and caring
as any group anywhere. And when
all of the New York noise and energy is focused on something as positive as a
marathon, the result is something truly spectacular.
Each runner in the New York
marathon was assigned to one of three “villages” near the start, next to Fort
Wadsworth in Staten Island. To get
there, you could either take a bus from the various boroughs or the Staten
Island Ferry from Manhattan. I
took the ferry. The experience was
surreal. Before sunrise, thousands
of runners, all wearing fancy running shoes and ratty, used throw-away clothes
from the Salvation Army (to keep warm before the start), streamed silently up
the escalators to the ferry terminal.
The atmosphere was calm but intense, with everyone excited in
anticipation of a long race, but measured, knowing that the first runners
wouldn’t be leaving the corrals for over three hours. The ferry had a police escort boat next to it. The sun started to rise while we were
crossing the river. The Manhattan
skyline and the Statue of Liberty were beautiful.
The start villages were like carnivals. Thousands of people milled around,
stretched, had snacks, waited in line for the port-o-potties. Music and race day rules repeated in loops
on giant video screens. Dunkin
Donuts gave out free coffee and warm, cotton winter hats. (Genius marketing
move – brainwash people when they’re cold and tired and psychologically
vulnerable. Whenever I see a
Dunkin now, which, in Boston, is usually about 35 times a day, I feel warm and
happy and like I want to spend all my money on breakfast sandwiches and
munchkins).
The course started at the
base of the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island, crossed into Brooklyn, went through
all of Brooklyn and a chunk of Queens, over the 59th Street Bridge
(now renamed the Ed Koch Bridge) into Manhattan, all the way up 1st
Ave. into the Bronx, back down 5th Ave., into Central Park at 89th
Street, out onto Central Park South, back into Central Park at Columbus Circle,
and ended near 69th Street.
50,304 people ran this year’s
New York marathon. And it was
estimated that 2 million people were out watching along the course. What that meant from a runner’s
perspective is that every foot of the course, with the exception of the
bridges, was lined with spectators standing shoulder to shoulder, sometimes
four people deep. There were bands
on almost every block – so many that the music often ran together and you
couldn’t even make out who was playing what. DJs, folk bands, metal bands (one orthodox Jewish one),
several Grateful Dead cover bands, drum circles, a gospel rhythm section
playing a slow jam outside of a church (if you’re ever going to convert me,
that’s the way to do it), bluegrass jam circles, marching bands, folk singers,
karaoke, reggae bands, and lots of good ol’ banging on garbage can lids. The
noise level ranged from loud to complete sensory overload.
The spirit and energy from the
crowds was like nothing I have ever experienced. Several times, I was so moved by the almost hysterical
emotion coming from the crowds, that I gasped and teared up and had trouble
catching my breath. The power of
New York crowds turning their focus on runners slogging through the streets was
overwhelming. No polite clapping and quiet approval here. Thousands upon thousands of people,
block after block after block were just letting it all hang out. People screamed at individual runners,
whether they knew them or not.
“DAAAAVVVVVE, you GO!” “Oh YEAH lady with the flower print tights, you
KNOW you’re looking GOOOOOD!” “Oh my GAWD you all are KICKIN AAAAASSSSSS!” A yuppie with a sport jacket and
loafers was jumping up and down so hard that his cell phone dropped out of his
pocket and smashed on the street. Hipsters lost their cool and screamed like little kids. In Central Park South, almost at mile
26, when the runners were out of gas and really looking ragged, the crowd was
still deafening. People on the
sidelines looked so genuinely concerned and proud and yearning, it felt like
every one of them knew each runner like family and had some deep, personal
stake in helping him reach the finish.
After the race, volunteers
draped bright yellow fleece ponchos over the runners to keep them warm in the
crisp November afternoon. They
were like angels. Walking down the
Upper West Side, strangers said congratulations. The barista at a Starbucks next to the Wall Street bull gave
me a free coffee. The bell captain
at the Doubletree Hotel where we were staying was so excited to see me come
back after the race he was almost screaming at me – “oh MAN, you ran 26 miles!?
That is CRAZY! MAN!” After dinner
at a fancy restaurant in Chelsea, the waiter brought me a desert, on the house,
with “congratulations” written in chocolate on the side of the plate.
I don’t know if an experience
like this could happen anywhere else.
New Yorkers do things big and they do them loud. I love running because it’s so simple
and natural and good. And to run a
race where the human spirit is so powerful and distilled and focused upon
something so positive and happy – the feeling is almost beyond description. Pure elation. People can do horrible things
to one another. But they can also
be so good to one another and so supportive that your faith in the whole human
race can’t help but be uplifted.
Thanks for the show, New York!
You sure know how to make a guy feel good.
Here’s Alec Baldwin talking
about the New York Marathon. Whoda
ever thunk this guy could get me all emotional.
http://vimeo.com/28827733
Here’s a touching video of
Meb Keflezighi talking about breaking down and having to walk during the
race. Depending on how you look at
it, you could say that I beat him. Technically, he finished the race 1 hour and 23 minutes
faster than I did. But he had to
walk a little starting at mile 19, and I didn’t have to walk until mile 24.
It’s really a tough course.
http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/250963-New-York-City-Marathon-2013/video/723689-Emotional-Meb-Keflezighi-after-NYC-Marathon-2013
Here’s a documentary about
Fred Lebow, the founder of the New York Marathon. He was just a weird, quirky dude, and not a very good
runner, who started organizing events, which morphed into the marathon. The course starting going through all
five boroughs, including the Bronx, in the late ‘70s. Not a time when skinny white runner dudes usually ran
voluntarily through the Bronx.
http://www.fredlebowmovie.com/
