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The Most Fun I've Had Running

2002 November 3

I harbored quite a few doubts entering the final week before the race.  I was still nursing my foot, aware of the neuroma pain.  I felt a lingering fatigue in my legs, possibly the result of too much speed work during my taper.  I wasn't sleeping well either.  I found myself wanting to look past the marathon, and focus on enjoying the vacation.  I couldn't seem to think of the race as a culmination of lots of hard work.  Instead I was nervous about my prospects. 

The final week was a whirlwind of activity between cleaning things up at work and home.  The night before I left for New York, I'd gotten only about four hours of sleep.

The flight was fairly empty, so I ended up sleeping about two or three hours.  When I arrived at Sandy's, we went out for a good meal.  I crashed and slept about seven hours (aided by Melatonin).  The next morning (Friday), I woke up and helped a little around the house before heading out for my last training run before the race.  It was chilly (about 40) and windy.  I didn't feel "fast", but still managed three mild acceleration glides (1 min each).  Given the fatigue I'd been feeling, it may not have been the best idea.  I thought I might gain a small mental edge from this, although that was not to be.

Friday evening I picked Kris, the kids, and my mother up at the airport, and we picked some sandwiches up.  I slept a little bit better, but was really starting to feel a bit psyched out by the big event.  Saturday, we putzed around the house for a while before heading into the city.  I dropped my bags off at the hotel, and took a cab to the marathon expo at the Javits Convention Center. 

The expo was a lot of waiting in line.  We waited to get into the expo.  We waited to pick up our numbers.  There were hoards of people milling about.  I was regretting not having made it to the expo the day before.  The high point of the expo was meeting Frank Shorter in the New Balance booth.  Other than that it was sort of a drag. 

I hopped a bus back to the hotel and laid my stuff out for the next morning.  I'd located some Poland Springs water bottles with the sport tops, so I mixed up three 24 oz bottles of Accelerade (I was going to carry my own drinks during the race).  Around 6:30, I got into a cab and rode up to the vicinity of Tavern on the Green for the pasta dinner.  The crowd was huge.  As I wandered north looking for the end of the line going in, I heard that the wait was at least ninety minutes, and that the line was seven blocks long.  So I got into another cab and headed back towards the hotel to eat.  No dinner is worth waiting until after 9 for, when you're wanting to get to bed early.  As it worked out, I had a very nice dinner at the hotel : linguine with olive oil and steamed spinach.  It was a perfect choice.  I went up to the room and was asleep by 10:30 (again aided by Melatonin).

I awoke to the sound of carousing neighbors at 11:20.  Not pleased, I considered my options.  Before I could get too worked up about anything, the room went silent, and I went back to sleep.  I was pretty well hydrated, so I woke up several times to urinate, but felt rested when the alarm went off at 5:45.

That's one of the crazy things about this race.  It begins at 11:10, but you spent at least three hours out at the start before the race begins.  The easiest option is to buy a marathon bus ticket and leave the driving to the Road Runners, but that means an early wake up call.

Dressed and ready in my room at the Algonquin Hotel, 6:15 AM on Marathon Sunday with my gear bags.

I ate, snapped a couple of pictures and set out for the bus line, in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library.  Astoundingly, the line was about three blocks long.  It moved quickly though and shortly after seven, we were enroute to Staten Island.

On the bus, I fell into a conversation with a woman from Florida, doing her third NYC marathon, and a young man from New Zealand, doing his first-ever marathon.  We were all excited and nervous about the race, but took time to notice the beautiful morning.  The sun was shining off of the skyscrapers, and the water.  It was cold, but not too cold.

On arrival at the west end of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, I plodded around checking out the sprawl of activity, looking for a place to lie down and relax.  Lines for coffee, bagels, and toilets were really long.  I found a little space by one of the large shelter tents, and laid down.  There I struck up a conversation with two local women, applying marathon tattoos to their legs and cheeks.  They offered me one which I applied to the back of my leg. 

After a while I went in search of a place to pee and then to relax some more (this was still two hours before race time).  At this point, I'll drop in a mention of the sheer numbers of people, evidenced by the crowd at what had to be the world's longest outdoor urinal.  East of the big trough was a fence where women and men both found more private places to relieve themselves.  I'm not sure whether this open-ness finds its foundations in desperation (hey - 40 minute lines for the potties) or whether people simply don't care.  Anyway - in my experience, it was rivaled only by the line of men peeing below a row of palm trees at the starting line of the San Diego Rock 'n Roll Marathon three years ago.

I found a place to sack out next to a group of Galloway runners from Atlanta.  They were a nice bunch, and were trying to form ad-hoc pace groups, and talking about their race strategies.  They invited me into their group picture, as I'd followed a Galloway training plan.  They talked and I closed my eyes to rest.

About twenty minutes before the start, I wandered up to the green corral, and found my place.  I'd checked my clothes, but kept my on-sale-purchased sweats on to ensure that I stayed warm and comfortable for the start.  As we walked up to the starting chute, people doffed their outer layers, leaving tons of discarded clothing for eventual donation to the homeless.  Some stretched.  Others ran into the bushes one last time (we were a pretty well-hydrated bunch).  As the minutes ticked down, things began to sink in for me.  I thought about the hills on the course, reviewed my walk-break strategy, and doffed my clothes.  I was carrying 72 oz of Accelerade, one bottle on my belt, and one in each hand.

Off Through the Five Boroughs

Staten Island

The horn went off, and Frank Sinatra began to "sing" over the loudspeakers.  I got a chill as I realized that I was underway, and two minutes later I crossed the start.  The organizers had done a very good job of formulating the proper flow control, as we were able to run almost immediately, albeit in a crowd.  I was a bit disappointed that my wave was to take the lower deck of the bridge, but noted that this might provide a modicum of protection from the wind that might whip the upper deck.

I had to slow myself down several times, as excitement drove my heart rate up over 150.  I enjoyed the view out into Upper New York Bay, including several fireboats spraying red, white, and blue water into the air as a salute.  At the first mile marker, I forgot to take my planned minute-long walk break, but recalled about two minutes later.  This screwed up my split calculation a little, and my fast deceleration annoyed the people behind me too.  But by then I'd crossed into the second borough which was ...

Brooklyn

The bridge seemed to go on a long time.  As we descended into lower Brooklyn, the red and green waves split, and we found ourselves near Fort Hamilton, along the parkway.  Shortly after the two mile mark, we wound our way into the Bay Ridge community, lined with brownstones and people.  This was the way the course went for quite some time, and it was very pleasant.  People lined the cordoned-off streets, and overpasses all the way making lots of noise.  The energy was great.  Eventually we found ourselves heading north on 4th Avenue, where we would remain until nearly the 8 mile mark.  I'd heard that there might be a small cheering section and perhaps a sign waiting around the intersection of 4th Ave. and 3rd St. 

At this point I noted that my heart rate was higher than desired, but thankfully not high enough to cause concern.  While I'd hoped to keep it between 130 and 140 for the first ten miles (as I had in training), I was running between 145 and 153 most of the time.  With my walking breaks, I kept around a 9:10-9:20 pace - a bit slower than I'd wanted.  Rather than getting worried so early, I decided to listen to the heart rate monitor and be conservative.  I also found my mind wandering several times, to the point of forgetting which mile I was on.  This made a mental tally of my splits difficult, but given my slower pace, that was probably a good thing.

As the east-west streets counted down on our northward trek up 4th Avenue I observed a steady and thick column of people stretching as far as I could see.  Through mile 6 and 7, I watched the miscellanea of various neighborhoods roll by, and enjoyed the diverse and active group of people cheering us on.  I jockeyed over to the western side of the street so as to meet my cheering section.  That intersection came and went with no sign of friends.  That particular corner was very crowded, so I assumed that I'd simply missed them, or that I'd misremembered the particular corner they were supposed to have been on.  Later I found out that they'd been someplace else, but had been cheering for me (and another friend) just the same.

In the realm of cheering, circa mile 6 and 7, I found myself running near a blind man named Eddie.  He had two guides running in front on him, with a short rope between them (to ensure that no one slowed in front enough to run into Eddie), and each tethered to him as well.  The crowd actively cheered him on, and I thought of the elite blind female runner, Marla Runyan who was at this moment passing the halfway mark on her way to a fifth place finish in the women's pack.  Eddie was not an elite runner, but he had lots of spirit and determination.  At one point, he stumbled and ended up on the ground.  Eddie quickly picked himself up and resumed his race.  I found myself really admiring his efforts.

As the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower came into view, and then went by, I was still walking one minute per mile, and drinking as often as I felt thirsty.  I felt some fatigue in my legs and worried about that a bit, but pushed any sense of discouragement out of mind quickly.

Mile 9 found us in Bedford-Styvesant, where there was a visible change in ethnicity in the crowd.  This phenomena really struck me - the change was pronounced and constant, but the crowd's encouragement was all constant and strong.  Often people would shout out the name of a runner who had written it on their clothing.  Lots of people wrote down their home as well - so it was not unusual to hear "Go Fred from Buffalo!" over and over as we settled into a somewhat constant pack.  The other extraordinary thing about this race was that I was running in a crowd the whole time.  There was no appreciable thinning in the pack between mile five and twenty five, which is very unusual. 

As we passed from Bedford-Sty into Williamsburg, I saw the Hasidic Jews walking along, smiling at the big herd of runners.  In contrast to the crowds offering the runners orange slices and water, several gentlemen in this crowd offered us cigarettes - which would have been funny sometime, but not then.  I opted instead for my first Power Gel.  In my two previous marathons, I'd held out until nearly mile 18 before eating.  THis time around, I'd taken to eating twice : once at mile 10, and again around mile 20.  In doing so, I hoped to fuel both early and often enough not to feel depleted.  At mile 11, we saw the big bridges to Manhattan peeking up over the buildings.  I think the bridges lining the east side of Manhattan into the outer boroughs are really something to see.

Mile 12 found us in the Greenpoint community.  There were lots of attractive row houses, and lots of people out here.  The sun was out, and it was a bit warmer than I had expected by now - although my heart rate remained steadily below 153.  We wound around the streets a bit, and soon found ourselves climbing the Pulaski Bridge into the borough of ...

Queens

My walk break at 13 miles occurred conveniently on the upslope of the bridge.  The Queens side was a short descent into Long Island City.  After having completed two of the noticeable hills on the course, I was thankful that my everyday training runs incorporated significant climbs.  By and large I was only faintly aware of the elevation gains.  We spent just over a mile in Queens, most of it not that memorable.  Then we wound around several blocks, beginning our third climb of the race - up to the Queensborough Bridge.

By the time I reached the lower deck of the bridge, I was feeling some true fatigue.  My legs felt tired, and my right hip hurt a bit (possibly due to the angle of the running surface).  All of this concerned me a bit.  I worried that I wouldn't have something left for my push running up the streets of ...

Manhattan

The noise level seemed to go up significantly as we descended from the Queensborough Bridge.  Mile 16 found me shrinking my walk break from one minute down to 30 seconds, in hopes of realizing a built-in negative split.  By then, my mile splits were closer to an even 9 minutes per mile.  The way things worked, I found myself having to slow down to keep my heart rate down enough.  The monitor's beeps were difficult to hear over the crowd noise, and I had to fight the inclination to try to make up for lost time here, feeling that it was still too early to push things too much.

We circled around and then headed northward on 1st Avenue.  The whole stretch from 59th Street all the way up to the 90s was jam packed with people.  We ran through Yorkville and squeezed sponges over our heads and faces. We reached mile 18 and picked up Power Gel.  Although I had one in my belt, I grabbed another here, thinking I might avoid having to dig around and futz with the belt pocket zipper.  Mile 19 found us in East Harlem, and again the composition of the crowd changed.  Things opened up a bit more too - the crush that lined 1st Avenue until then eased up.  I found myself looking for the bridge that signified the transition to the next borough.  In a few short minutes, I began my climb over the Willis Avenue Bridge which took us into ...

The Bronx

As we came down into the south Bronx, we were met by people sitting on the walkways of the bridge, and by a policeman shouting "Run - you've got to run when you're in the Bronx".  We passed the twenty mile mark, which signified my final walk break.  There wasn't a lot to see in our short stint in my home borough, but the smaller crowds were very pleasant nonetheless.  I couldn't see anything familiar from my vantage point on the course.  Soon, we made the turn on to the Madison Avenue Bridge.  I missed the quick view of Yankee Stadium on the approach, instead focusing on picking up the pace a bit over the final 10K.  By now I felt I was building real momentum, and knew that I was going to finish feeling okay.  I also noticed that my revised goal of finishing under four hours was still within reach.  It was going to be pretty close though, so I needed to make sure I had something left for the final push.  All of this ran through my mind as we crossed back into ...

Manhattan

Back on the island, we wound back through Harlem, and by mile 22, I became convinced that I would not hit the same kind of wall I'd hit when running in Anchorage and San Diego.  It was here that I reaped the full benefit of my training - going all the way up to 26 miles (twice).  I was feeling tired, but found myself being pulled inevitably to the finish line too.  We passed several parks and then headed down 5th Avenue.  Around 100th St and mile 22, we rounded a corner and I saw the northern end of Central Park.  I smiled and felt relief, knowing that even if all hell broke loose, I'd be able to walk from there, and still finish with some respect.

Along the eastern side of the park, the crowds got really thick again.  It was here that I began looking for Kris, Kayla, Rachel and my mom - thinking that they'd opt for this spot rather than try to brave the crowds closer to the finish.  I scanned the faces along the side, and gave out lots of high-fives along the way.  I'd decided that I needed to really enjoy this last part, and so I did.  When we turned into the park at mile 23, I was oblivious of having completed the final climb, and instead focused on trying to find my family.  By now, I was pushing myself pretty hard for an old guy who had already run over 23 miles.  The miles started to drag a bit, probably due to the fact that I couldn't let myself slow down now - I had to "look fast" as I headed in for the finish.  I was so focused on the crowd that I managed to miss all of the landmarks along the way - all of the museums, and the reservoir.  I was passing people at a pretty good clip, although being a bit fatigued, I actually bumped more than one of them - not the best form.  I'd go BUMP "oops sorry" - and then again.

Passing the 25 mile mark, just before we exited the park onto Central Park South.  I'm the runner on the left, wearing my lucky Phidippides shirt, purchased at Jeff Galloway's Atlanta running store of the same name.

Still heading south, we wound around a bit, and I became a little confused.  Around mile 25, we exited to head west on Central Park South.  I was convinced that we'd  already made the final northbound turn, and was a little discouraged (and winded) when it became apparent that I had a bit farther to go than anticipated.  Still - I couldn't let myself slow down, as I might gear back, just as I passed the family.  I gasped as I passed a sign that said "Only 1/2 mile to go", thinking that it was going to be difficult to maintain my current pace that long.  This was probably were the mile repeats I'd done in training proved valuable.  Although my heart was pounding (I was ignoring the heart rate monitor by then), and I was gasping, I knew that I could keep the pace up for just a little longer. 

Two shots of me at the finish line, precisely one second before my official (gun) finish.  In the second frame, I broke a cardinal rule of race photography by glancing down at my watch.  Had I read my participant's guide cover-to-cover, I would have known better.

As we made the turn back into the park near Columbus Circle, I could see the finish.  Unfortunately as I approached, I heard the countdown to the four hour "gun time", come and go.  Although I knew my chip time would be better than four hours, my gun time was not.  I sprinted the final quarter mile and before I knew it, I'd finished the race, clicking my watch "done" at 3:57:54 (my gun time was 4:00:18).  This was fifteen minutes faster than my previous best.  I had to tell myself that the race was over several more times, and convince my legs to stop running.  I'd had so much fun, I was ready to run a few more miles (although at a slower pace). 

This is Kayla's rendition of the finish area.  This is the bridge that runners and their families used to cross from the park interior out towards Central Park West.  The finishing runners are the figures below the bridge.  Runner #11375 (that's me!) is furthest to the left.

The column of walking runners went to collect our medals, and then our finishers blankets.  We probably walked another 3/4 mile just getting our food and clothing.  It was really over.  In a way I was sorry, but I also felt a glow of accomplishment knowing that I'd run a race that I enjoyed a great deal.  Here are the splits that I recorded on my watch :

The split for mile 8 probably includes two walk break.  Presuming each break costs about 20 seconds relative to a running pace, these numbers almost make sense.  I forgot to hit my watch at miles 21 and 23, so you only see the even mile splits there.  I included the pace information there.  The split data reveals that there was a gain when I shortened the walk break from 60 seconds to 30 after mile 15, although not as pronounced as you'd think.  This reflects the fatigue I was feeling, and the conservatism I exercised as a result.  What I'm happiest about is that the splits over the final 10K trend down again, even in excess of the 10 or so seconds I gained by eliminating the walk breaks.  Despite the spike at the mile 8 split, I suspect that my slowest mile split was really my first.  My fastest mile split was the final one - another good sign.  This means I can improve still more.

I changed out of my wet clothes while (partially) wrapped in the blanket, and then headed out onto Central Park West to look for the Roosevelt Statue by the Museum of Natural History, where I expected to find my waiting family.  Grinning ear to ear, I waved to my cousin Sandy, and then waited with her for the others to find us.

My cousin Sandy and I pose in front of the Museum of Natural History.

The big race was over.  As I write this over a week later, I find myself now dealing with the inevitable letdown that comes after experiencing the euphoria of accomplishment.  It means that I need to develop my next goal.  I very much want to maintain my marathon conditioning, but doubt that this is feasible, given Kris' aspirations to step up her training.  The draw is there though, and in a way I feel almost as if I am fighting the momentum I found on Marathon Sunday to slow down, recover, and smell the roses.