Originally posted 11.10.2005
I’d like to apologize right off the bat—this year’s marathon write-up will not be as amusing as last year’s because there’s just no room in it for self-deprecation. Simply put, I trained really hard, the elements worked in my favor, and I had an awesome race, exceeding my highest expectations.
I arrived at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, early. Really early. Before dawn. There weren’t many of us there at that point, and fog and dark concealed most of the staging area from view. But I knew that within a few hours the three athletes’ villages would fill with runners from around the world: about 37,000 of them, nearly enough to fill out my Wisconsin hometown or my alma mater’s undergraduate population.
I was comfortable at first, sitting on a curb chatting with a couple of out-of-town runners who’d been on my bus from lower Manhattan. But as dawn broke, it somehow got colder. Either that or whatever warmth I’d carried from my Brooklyn bedroom had dispersed, leaving me with icy hands and chattering teeth. I piled on nearly every item I’d brought with me, including a small cardigan, which I wrapped around my head like a turban, and carried cups of coffee to warm my hands.
For 20 minutes or so, I enjoyed a blues band tearing it up at the entertainment stage. They were good, but the setting was surreal. This music and energy, the stuff of summer weekend festivals and sultry, beery nights, was now bathed in the thin light of an early November morning, punctuated by the smell of Ben Gay and Icy Hot. Hats off to the musicians, not typically morning people—perhaps they’d been up all night.
With a little more than an hour to go, I dropped my bag off at its corresponding truck and made my way over to the elite local corral. Here, the crowd was a lot smaller, so it was easy to find my teammates congregated on a small patch of ground, passing around a tube of Vaseline (to prevent chafing) and a waterproof marker. I sat down with my legs comfortably folded under me, noting that I wouldn’t be able to sit like that again for a while.
As I looked around, it struck me that we were all, well, touchingly cute. The women at the local elite corral are mostly over 30 and mostly serious competitors, intrepid athletes who log endless miles, many of them in the dark, no strangers to the pain and stink of the sport, the sweat, snot, spit and injuries—every ugly little thing the body does when pushed to its limits. But there they were with ribbons in their hair, waterproof mascara, pretty little earrings and necklaces. I myself was wearing my first piece of jewelry: a cursive “M” in a circle in gold on a baby-fine chain. When I was a very little girl, this was worn on special occasions, holidays and birthdays, anytime there might be a party dress involved. On race day, the little charm rested just below the hollow of my throat, a small glint of vanity above my baggy white singlet and voluminous black shorts (team uniform).
We were called to the start-before-the-start, those of us with three-digit race numbers brought forward, arms linked, until we stood under the banner of balloons. Here, under rush-hour subway conditions, my pre-race giddiness took a jittery, bitter edge: love only for my teammates, irritation toward everyone else, especially the Italians in front of me, in particular the loud one whose ponytail kept assaulting my nose. By the time the National Anthem was being belted out by a singer I couldn’t see, I was laughing with annoyance—I can’t stand the Star Spangled Banner, sentimental war ditty that it is. But at last the cannon boomed and we were off with a whoop and holler.
The first two miles were pretty uncomfortable. My shins ached and my ankles were stiff. But within the first mile I’d found Marie, which was pretty much the extent of my racing strategy. Marie’s a seasoned marathoner, a metronomic distance runner who helped me land a PR (personal record) in a half-marathon last summer. She’s also my hero in running: a tireless cheerleader for the sport, an Achilles volunteer, and something of a local celebrity. To know her is to admire her, and I do.
But I’d also been a little worried about her. Already lean as a snake, she’d dropped about 10 pounds in the weeks before the race, weight she could ill-afford to lose: we were all cold in Fort Wadsworth, but Marie was shivering visibly, her teeth chattering even in the crush of bodies at the start. So while I was looking to her for support and guidance and the comfort of her presence, it struck me that I might be the stronger of us, a thought that didn’t make me very comfortable. Not that I’m averse to being supportive rather than supported, but I also felt, out of deference, that I had no right to have a better race than she.
We left the Verrazano and turned into Bay Ridge, the first of the crowd of 2 million spectators, the guy on his third-floor balcony with a cowbell, the first of the bands (again, hats off to the musicians, rocking both watchers and runners well before noon). The little pains of my first two miles melted away in the miles up 4th Avenue, and I took water and Gatorade when available, and learned a valuable lesson about the latter: it doesn’t sting the eyes, though it will cause lashes to stick together.
When my watch hit the hour mark, I tore into my first gel. Last year I waited until mile 16 to do this, far too long. But now I know, following Marie’s example, to take one every hour. It’s not easy to eat while you’re running, even if you don’t have to chew: it takes a bit more focus to swallow a gel than to down a liquid; they’re hard to breathe around.
Through Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, we kept up a pace that would get us to the finish line ahead of my goal, and spot on for Marie’s. As we passed through water stations, she handed off Gatorades to me, sustenance I might otherwise have overlooked. We drew close to the Pulaski Bridge, the half-way point, and she said, “this is where you reassess, and I know now I’m not going to have the race I wanted.” It made me sad to hear. I was having better than the race I’d expected, largely from what I’d learned from Marie: high volume distance in training, dietary supplements during the race, Gatorade over water.
As we came to the end of the Queensboro, Marie realized she’d lost one of her gels. Counting on picking one up at mile 18 (where the marathon officially distributes them) and hungry, she’d eaten one of her three before the start. I passed her one of my remaining two, delighted to have an opportunity to help her out for a change. It’s so rare for me to be the one in any situation who has something extra: an extra sweater, sandwich, umbrella. A nice change of pace for me to provide a rescue, however small. And that is pretty much where my pace did indeed change.
Somewhere around 17, I started into a surge that would continue until nearly mile 24. Passing mile 20 in the Bronx, I laughed. Wall? There would be no wall for me. Most of the signage I passed at that point was of the “hang in there” variety. I didn’t need it. Beaming at the crowd, I conducted them, scooping my arms over my head, into a wave of cheers every few blocks. “Look at that gal with the braids,” I heard, and “You go, smiley!” (For the record, no one has ever called me ‘smiley.’)
The last two miles in the park were harder. My smile flagged, and acceleration was impossible. But there wasn’t really any pain, just heaviness in my legs, and a distraction as my head tried to remember how long it takes me to run 200 yards. I passed the finish line with a huge grin, and was hugged by the guy who’d crossed nearly in tandem with me, in 3:10:39.
What’s next? I don’t know. I’m curious to see if I could still have a strong race with less training because, frankly, I don’t want to train that hard again. I sacrificed a lot for that marathon, and my life got pretty out of balance for a while. But after an experience like that, there’s no way I could retire from the marathon, which had sort of been my intention (at first, I wanted to do only one, but I did it so poorly I had to do it again to improve on it…). So, to those of you who scoffed when I said NYC 2005 would be the last, well, you’re probably right.
Also, a big thank you to everyone who called before and after the race to wish me well, to everyone who turned out to cheer, to my coach and teammates for their endless advice and inspiration, to my coworkers for their support and interest, to the H3 for helping me keep a sense of humor, and to my roommate for putting up with everything the roommate of a marathon runner puts up with.
