The NYC Marathon
Posted by Admin on November 1, 2009 in Training
It’s a big race, this NYC Marathon. Big is a relative word, but in terms of the 42,000 runners, the scores of police and race officials and volunteers, the spectators, the media folks covering it, and the geography that includes 5 boroughs, it fits in every sense. In the much smaller races in which I compete, there’s quite a bit more time for a spectator to focus on an athlete and to develop some sense of identity with what he/she is going through. In the NYC Marathon, your head is on a swivel and you have but a second or maybe two to see a person’s face and from that brief moment, to come up with some conclusion of that person’s current state. You have no ability to see what that person was like 20 minutes ago and you can only guess at what things will be like 20 minutes from now. Now take that brief 1-2 seconds and multiply it by thousands; what you get is a mish-mosh of fleeting moments that in aggregate, tell a piecemeal story of what a marathon is.
I was out for 4+ hours today watching the race. First stop was the Upper East Side on 1st Avenue. There, I met up with Fernando’s wife, kids, and friends. After a fair amount of time, we got a phone call from Fern’s sister who said that he had just run by her spot, which was about a mile from us. In no time, we saw Fernando and he came over to greet us for just a few seconds before moving on. Immediately, I was peppered with questions about how I thought Fernando looked. Yes, I’m a trained endurance athlete with lots of experience, but what I could tell about Fern from having seen him run for less than 20 feet? I surmised that he was probably doing okay, but was a bit tired. After all, this was the mile 18 mark!
Thereafter, I headed back up to my home which is on the race course at about mile 21.5. I sat on my front steps with neighbors and tried to figure out the best strategy for finding Fern and the rest of my friends. I was fortunate to have seen Fern shortly thereafter and jogged carefully (the whole knee thing) alongside him for a quarter mile. He told me how much his feet hurt and that his toe was likely bleeding. He was in bad spirits, but I told him I love him and that he was still doing great.
That encounter was a good one in terms of having the time to ascertain his condition. Had I not gotten up, I would have had just a brief 1-2 seconds. I know Fern extremely well and combining that knowledge with the empirical reality of his experience today gave me the ability to make some good conclusions. After heading back to my front steps, and after sitting for another 2 hours or so, I saw thousands of new faces. Some depicted smiles, others grimaces, and still others with stoic expressions. I know the expression of grimace; it’s a familiar sight to anyone who has seen me in long-distance event, but I too know that feeling of freedom, of feeling light and because of it, smiling is irrepressible. I saw lots of people smiling and it made me smile. It made me want to strip off my sweatshirt and join alongside them. Fortunately, the depictions of utter agony and near-defeat tempered such urges!
Bottom line is that there really is no one constant when it comes to major events like this. There are instead several constants, but they run along a spectrum. That is, you’re going to have folks who feel great, folks who are hating the experience, and those in between who are in the zone. I’ve been a statistic throughout all these shades of grey, so it was easier for me to identify with the athletes out there today. What I wish I could have done though is impart my words of optimism that comes from this experience. Instead, I watched from the sides and hoped that the theories of kinetic energy transfer were true.
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