So there I was, lying in my hospital bed on June 10, 2003, waiting to go into surgery where my doctor was going to pound a 16cm titanium rod down the middle of my right femur. No, it wasn’t a form of medieval torture or some kind of weird cosmetic surgery; he was going to fix my femur which had an unbelievable spiral fracture. (Don’t ask how I broke it because it that is a whole other story in itself.)
Anyway, my bedside phone rings and it is my best friend Jasper on the line. “Guess what?” he says, “The results from the NY Marathon lottery came out this morning and you made the cut.” I couldn’t believe it, but at that moment, I knew that no matter what, I had to make it out to NY for the marathon, even if it meant being pushed in a wheelchair, I was going to be there.
So the whole summer, when most runners were training for the marathon, I was recovering from the surgery and trying to speed along the healing process. It wasn’t until mid-September before I could bear full weight on my leg. It doesn’t take a math major to figure out that only left 1.5 months to train.
Since time was short, I really didn’t have much of a training regimen. I tried to run a couple times a week (about 10 miles at most). I did do one 26-mile bike ride, but that was about it.
Before I knew it, the race weekend had arrived. I was nervous about my ability to finish. But I was going with the attitude that I was just going to do my best and have fun with it. For me, this was a different attitude, because admittedly, I am very competitive with others and myself. Naturally, I would have wanted to better my time from my last marathon and beat P. Diddy (who wouldn’t?!?), realistically I knew I couldn’t.
There were a couple of AREC folks there running as well, Laura and Bob, and another good friend, Yogi. On the day of the race, Laura, Yogi and I were getting ready to head to the buses to the start, when Bob called us at 5am; he was already on the bus heading to the start. Wow, what an early riser!
Even though the race didn’t start until 10am, we had to catch the shuttle bus early in the morning, at 6:30am. I guess it takes a while to transport almost 40,000 runners to the starting line. So, manned with our bagels and Gatorade, we boarded the buses. Once in the starting area, it was a festival atmosphere – booths offering hot drinks, water, yogurt, bagels, and a band playing. There were more port-a-potties than I have ever seen in my life! One tip that Yogi taught us is to pick a line with mostly guys in it – it moves faster!
We had a couple hours to kill before the start of the race and luckily the weather was unseasonably warm, with projected highs reaching 71 degrees. Laura, Yogi and I found a spot on the grass in the sun and continued our race preparations. Bob met up with us for a few minutes to wish us luck in the race.
The three of us each had different starting colors. Depending upon your predicted finishing time, they have you start in different areas, Green, Red or Blue. But instead of going to our designated areas, we all decided to start in the Green area with Yogi. It was nearing 10am, I was getting more nervous, but kept reminding myself to take it easy and have fun. I decided to take a lesson from Jasper who told me not to wear a watch – just concentrate on how my body felt and go with it.
The start was exciting – we heard two loud booms signalling the start, and we were off and running to the sounds of Frank Sinatra singing “New York, New York” (well, actually, walking to the start, because it was so crowded). I was off on my 26.2 mile journey with the view of thousands of runners crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge – it was amazing!
Once over the bridge, we entered the second of five boroughs, Brooklyn (having started on Staten Island). Everyone was shouting, “Welcome to Brooklyn.” We had about a 5-mile stretch down Fourth Avenue and the crowds out cheering and the bands playing along the route were spectacular. This marathon is different in that for the first few miles, there are several different routes that don’t converge again until mile 8. The next few miles were memorable, because they went through several culturally diverse neighborhoods. Everyone was passing out water to the runners.
The second bridge was the Pulaski Bridge which leads into Queens, also the halfway point in the race. Up until now, I had run most of the race and felt really good. The next challenge was the Queensboro Bridge heading out of Queens and back into Manhattan. This was a boring stretch, but the reward at the end was worth it. As I came off the bridge and did a kind of u-turn onto First Avenue, there was a huge crowd cheering and welcoming you back to Manhattan. That was just the motivation I needed!
Running down First Avenue was great, too. Nice rolling hills. Of course, I walked most of the uphills and ran the downhills. The 4th bridge at mile 20 was the Willis Avenue Bridge. The course marshals were there yelling that we had a short jaunt through the Bronx and then back into Manhattan for the home stretch. By this time I was taking a lot more walking breaks, but I was still smiling and nothing hurt or was broken.
About a mile later, we came to the last bridge, Madison Avenue Bridge, which took us back to Manhattan. I could see Yankee Stadium, and the sign for Fifth Avenue. Yippee! Almost there. The first part of this went through Harlem, which was really neat. There were several church choirs dressed in their choir robes out on the steps of their churches singing for all the runners.
Before I knew it, I had less than 5K left. Fifth Avenue was relaxing, the course paralleled Central Park for a couple miles on a tree-lined street and finally entered Central Park around 90th Street. All along the roads of Central Park people were yelling to us that we were “Almost There,” “Looking Good,” and “Keep Going.” It was inspiring.
At mile 25, I decided that I had to run the last mile in, my victory lap (as someone once called it). I was smiling the whole way and was never happier to see the finish line as I was that day. 5 hours and 36 minutes of pure fun. I did it!
Postscript: Special thanks to Yogi. From the beginning, you were the only one that kept telling me I could do it, when everyone else was telling me I couldn’t. You’re the best!