Originally posted 11.09.2004
I’ve heard it said many times that a marathon is two races: a 20-mile race and a 10K. Mine was two half marathons. The first run by a seasoned, well-conditioned athlete; the second run by someone who likes to play backgammon and poke around in the garden a bit on weekends.
It started out well enough. Through my involvement with the Road Runners I got preferential transportation, seating on a celebrity bus that left from midtown and dropped me at the start without any hassles. Hungry, despite the previous day’s unrestrained noshing and a light breakfast, I ate part of a Dannon smoothie and part of a Power Bar, which would repeat on me with every burp for 26 miles (I will never eat a vanilla crisp Power Bar again). Fort Wadsworth was a sedate festival: runners in various states of dress and undress, pinning on their numbers, nervously devouring bagels, catching a little nap on the ground. I stashed my bag on the celebrity truck, then made my way over to the local elite start. I might never have located my team if not for the commotion caused by an exasperated Marie. Her bus had started late and gotten stuck in traffic. She and some others managed to get a lift from a woman who crushed her husband and children into the front seat of their car, moralizing to the kids that, “this is what a Good Samaritan does.”
As 10:10 grew nearer, the first five rows of us, under command of a large woman with a megaphone, linked arms and trotted to the base of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Women all around me squatted for a last-minute pee, and within minutes the surface of the bridge was lined like a roadmap with rivulets of urine. (I daintily picked up my feet, directing them toward dry spots. As if I was a treadmill runner living in a world of white carpets and low immunity.) A singer belted out the national anthem, the cannon boomed, and we took off under a clear-blue, helicopter-studded sky.
Though I knew Marie was going for a faster time than I should attempt, her pace felt comfortable to me, so I stuck by her side for guidance and companionship as we left Staten Island and entered Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The miles flew by in the form of local bands, signage, cheers and whistles. We charged up Fourth Avenue, Marie calling out the splits and comparing them to the numbers on her pace bracelet. We were a little fast, but comfortable, conversing. It didn’t feel like racing. Just before mile 8 we chatted with Heather of the long blond ponytail, who had written her name across her belly and the backside of her shorts. Slightly chunky, but beautifully proportioned, she ran like a gazelle and attracted a lot of attention. In south Williamsburg, the crowd was quiet, solemn, Hasidic. But that changed within a mile as the face of the neighborhood went from Orthodox to hip. I heard my name shouted out around mile 11 and caught my brother’s friends Jim and Leslie waving their arms and cheering me on. The surge of energy I picked up from that encounter was incredible.
Greenpoint was a blur of Polish signage, a band with an accordion player on break. At the half-way point my time was 1:35, two minutes slower than my half-marathon PR (not a good sign). It was then that I lost Marie. I tried not to become discouraged as I watched her disappear into the crowd, her short choppy stride taking her further from me in steady increments. In a lecture I’d attended in September, Toby Tanser said that every mile is different. That you may feel wretched at mile 18, and spectacular at mile 19. I took this into consideration as the race began to take its toll. At mile 16, on the Queensboro Bridge, I sucked down a PowerGel, a sticky goop that coated my mouth like paste.
As we started up First Avenue, I maneuvered to the left side of the road, searching the crowd for familiar faces. It was a couple of miles before I saw Todd and was able to slip him the blue armband that would allow him access to the celebrity family reunion area (his support of my endeavors was unflagging throughout our relationship, and continues despite the breakup); half a block later, I saw Dan, cheering and crowing.
This is when things began to turn worse for me. Despite what Toby’d said about fluctuations in energy, I was in a steady decline. In the first half, when I took water I’d grab a cup from an aid station volunteers, and basically stick my face into it, sucking in a big mouthful and swallowing it gradually, tossing the rest to the ground. Now I began halting completely for water, taking two or three cups, and walking a bit. By the time I heard McMahon editors Kevin and Cindy cheering in East Harlem, I felt my pace had slowed significantly. Into the Bronx, the famous “wall,” my experience of the spectators quieted as the race became an internal struggle.
(continued in Part II)
