As it turned out, I barely needed a single one of the redundant systems. I had actually been awake and laying in bed for about half an hour when the first of the alarms went off. Not that I slept for long mind you, but I'd already been told by several people that it is quite common, and not to be concerned, if one doesn't sleep much or well the night before the marathon. So, with the world around me still dark - couldn't even call it pre-dawn - I got up and started what, as I described in my other post, was to be one of my most memorable days.
Before I went to bed the night before I laid out all my clothes and prepared my snacks, water, electrolyte drink, etc., so I wouldn't need to worry about forgetting anything. NY1's weather report was showing a chilly temperature of 37 degrees so I hoped my selection of pre-race layers would be sufficient to keep me warm during the hours of waiting before my 10:40 a.m. start time. Once dressed and packed I realized I was "ahead of schedule." It was just 5 a.m. but my bus, which was departing from a running store a block from my house, wasn't going to leave until between 5:30 and 6. Rather than wander aimless around my apartment for several more minutes I decided to head out into the cold, still dark night.
It was a bit surreal. Inside I knew this was the start of a big day but everything around me was still and silent. Perhaps it is cliché to say the calm before the storm yet that is how it felt. I walked down streets normally busy with pedestrians and cars passing nor seeing even a single one of either. It wasn't until I turned onto 7th Avenue that I saw lone figures, each carrying a clear plastic bag like mine and dressed in warm clothes, although not truly warm enough for the outside temperature, making their way to the only store, other than the 24 hour bodega, open at that hour on the street. We were pilgrims beginning our journey individually but gathering together in the warmth of Jackrabbit Sports. Inside the store was packed full of bleary–eyed men and women. There were greetings exchanged as friends came through the door, while others asked one another about their previous marathon experience, if any, while still others sat in pensive silence.
By just after 5:40 I was on board the first bus of four to depart. As we headed toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge we drove along 4th Avenue where we'd later be running down in the opposite direction and saw the traffic enforcement tow trucks removing the few remaining cars along the avenue. However, once we crossed the bridge and arrived in Staten Island, the starting point for the marathon, the reality of the moment began to set in. Just past the bridge's end, before the toll plaza, bus after bus lined up to discharge passengers while orange jacketed volunteers greeted and guided us along the road's shoulder to the entrance of the starting area. Even though it was still early, the area buzzed with excitement and loudspeakers were broadcasting instructional messages in a multitude of languages - French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, to name the few that I recognized and recall now. The multi-language announcements were matched by the the cacophony of languages being spoken by the hundreds of runners around me. There could be no doubt that this is truly an international event.
Now came the waiting. With a field of over 45,000 runner, the NYC Marathon has three starting waves beginning at 9:40 (after the elite women and wheel chair divisions have already departed) and continuing until the last leaves at 10:40. I was in the final wave. Thankfully Team Hole in the Wall had a tent in the Charity Village that not only provided shelter from the wind but was stocked with hot coffee and snacks. However, because I didn't take the team bus from mid-town, when I arrived there were only two other runners, who'd also taken alternate transportation to the start, in the tent. Indeed the Charity Village itself was nearly deserted for at least the next hour and a half yet suddenly, in the time it took me to enter and leave one of the many porta-potties, the area was packed with people. It was as if all team buses arrived simultaneously.
Over the next couple hours as the sun rose the day really began to take shape. Helicopters began appearing in the skies above in preparation of the start, announcements began calling Wave 1 runners to the starting corrals, and cannon blasts could be heard announcing each start - first the wheelchair division, then elite women, then elite men and Wave 1. By the time Wave 3 was called to the corrals I'd finished my breakfast, removed a couple layers of clothes, and stretched my legs and body as I'd done on my many training runs. With excited and nervous butterflies in my stomach I made my way to the start.
By the time I walked crossed the Staten Island in front of the toll plaza the energy of the crowd around me was palpable. This was it. I couldn't see the actual starting line, a combination of the other runners and a corridor of buses used to separate the waves form one another, blocked my view but I knew it was so close. The sound of the PA announcer could be heard announcing the final preparation, then a cannon bang, and the first chords of New York, New York began. We were underway. The crowd began to move forward, slowly at first, then gaining momentum as we approached the official starting line. The clock read just past five minutes from the starting gun when I stepped over the starting mat at just barely a jog but began picking up speed as we headed onto the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
What the NYC Marathon course lacks in hills it makes up with bridges and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge begins the race with a nearly one mile up grade. How many times had I driven over this bridge? In all sorts of weather. At every time of the year. But never like this. Always among the most spectacular views, whether looking northerly at the Manhattan skyline in the distance or southerly out at the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean each it is something to behold, now it was not only a perfectly blue, cloudless day to accentuate the scenery, but moving at a mere 10 miles an hour along the very edge of the bridge allowed me to savor every angle and image spreading out before me.
Coming off the bridge we came into contact with the first groups of people cheering along the sides of the route. There weren't many at first, just a few groups here and there along the streets of Bay Ridge, but soon we hit 4th Avenue and all hell broke loose. There were bands and throngs of people lining both sides of the street. It was, as I've described before, the beginning of the worlds largest block party - and it seemed all of Brooklyn had come out to celebrate.
As I ran down 4th Avenue, watching the street numbers tick off, I knew that each block was bringing me closer to the first spot where I knew friends and family were waiting to cheer for me. That isn't to say people weren't cheering my name. Like so many others I had my name written in large letters across my jersey, eliciting shouts of "GO DREW" from complete strangers. Just past 12th Street (I think) I saw a Team Hole in the Wall sign held aloft on a pole, the other end of which was held by my mom. I made a bee-line towards her, my brother, sister-in-law, nieces, and friends with arms waving. After a moment of celebration and a hand off of a bottle of electrolyte drink, I kept on into mile 8 with renewed energy and the sight of the Williamsburg Bank Building (now known as 1 Hanson Place) in front of me.
4th Avenue was great with so many people - friends, family, and strangers - lining both sides of the wide boulevard, and even in the middle median in places, but when the spectators and runners get compressed into the narrower streets of Williamsburg the energy really seemed to pick up. Whether or not there were more people it certainly felt like it. Shouts and cheers, not to mention songs from the various bands, reverberated and powered me through the rest of Brooklyn until I found myself on the Pulaski Bridge, running under the 13.1 mile banner marking half that half the marathon was done.
The course through Queens was fairly short but with similarly intense pockets of cheering as had been throughout Brooklyn. What Queens did, however, present was the challenge of several rather sharp turns - sharp, that is, for one that has already run a half marathon and who's legs are responding less and less to instructions other than "stride, stride, stride" - leading to the notorious ascent up the Queens Borough Bridge. Having watched the television coverage of the lead runners in years past, I was well aware of how the commentators described the experience of the bridge. Not only is it an ascent like the Verrazano, but unlike the opening bridge it has to be climbed on legs that have already covered nearly 16 miles and with the absence of the cheering crowds that helped get runners to it.
On to and up the roadway we went. My pace undoubtedly slowing slightly as the whole pack ran in near silence along the lower level. Amazingly, however, about halfway up the climb a crowd of runners in front of me began singing happy birthday to one among their ranks. It was quite remarkable and has to rank as one of the more unusual places I've participated in the songs singing. As we finished and began down the bridge toward Manhattan a new sound became audible. Just as the TV commentators talk about the period of running in silence across the bridge, they mention the canyon of noise on the other side as the route enters Manhattan for the first time and the cheering could clearly be heard long before any spectators were in sight.
The first Manhattanites were perched along the walls of the bridge but as we made a sharp pair of left turns leading to First Avenue we encountered multitudes. Hundreds, thousands of people were lined 10 deep behind barricades as well as clustered above on balconies along both sides of the avenue. And the noise. Yelling, cheering, ringing cowbells, blowing horns, creating a cacophony unknown to me before then. I'd been told by several prior runners that the crowds can help revive your energy at that point but also could lead a runner to break their pace, so I concentrated on staying on pace while soaking in the awesome amount of support and positive energy being directed at me and the other runners.
The Team Hole in the Wall cheer zone at 76th Street provided yet another, more focused cheering section. Dozens of supporters shouted wildly as I passed by, slapping high-fives with many, encouraging me ever northward. However, as the crowds began to thin north of 96th Street my first signs of fatigue began to show. I kept running but made a deal with myself: when I reached the next bridge, the Willis Avenue Bridge, linking Manhattan to the Bronx, I would walk the ascent, eat a packet of Hammer Gel, and assess my overall condition before I would resume running. After all, at 19.5 miles that point marks almost the longest distance I'd run to date. So, true to my word to myself, that is just what I did and it was the best decision I could have made.
Upon reaching the crest of the bridge, gel packet ingested and feeling generally positive about my legs and body, I started running again. Not long after I struck up a conversation with a fellow runner to my right. A simple exchange of pleasantries at first, she would prove to be invaluable for the remaining miles. Initially it was I helping her recover from cramping by suggesting she take on Gatorade at the next fluid station (she had until then only been drinking water and therefore not replacing the lost electrolytes) but soon we were alternatively cajoling, cheering, and even, at times, coercing each other to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I confronted my wall soon after we crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge back into Manhattan. We were just past the 21 mile mark, coursing through Harlem, when my energy seemed to slip away from me. My legs were still, reluctantly moving but the thought washed over me that I still have 5 miles to go. Perhaps short given the amount I'd already covered, but an impossible distance to consider in the moment. Jean, my running mate, feeling much better than when we'd started pacing with each other, pushed me on. Thanks in no small part to her encouragement, I rounded Marcus Garvey Park and saw the cross-street numbers decline steadily until we were at 111 and the tops of the trees in Central Park could be seen over the heads of the spectators. I knew the end was near.
As the building lined canyon of Fifth Avenue gave way to the street bordered by Central Park, we begin the second to last hill of the run. On any other day, this gentle half mile slope might seem like next to nothing. But not today. Today it stood between me and the entrance to Central Park and the final 2 miles of the race. The crowds grew larger as we approached 90th Street and the sweeping right turn into the park near the reservoir. This is the area I'd watch the runners on two occasions while living on the Upper West Side and the lines of well wishers were as deep as anywhere else on the course so far, but I knew that ahead was my father and step-mother. Knowing this and feeling the end so close at hand, my pace picked up slightly. Then even more when I actually saw them. What an energy boost, and I'm not merely speaking about the energy gel packets my dad passed to me as I ran by them. (It was also shortly after passing them that I came upon Edison Pena, the Chilean miner, who was running in his first marathon as well. He understandably struggled but did complete the race. A true source of inspiration.)
From there the race became a joy. Even with 25 miles in my legs I felt nothing. I almost floated out of the park near the Plaza hotel, along Central Park South, and toward Columbus Circle. Shortly after re-entering the park I passed under the 400 meter banner and felt a jolt of adrenaline....I was about to finish the New York Marathon. Up a final, short incline I could see the grandstands and the finish line arches. With new found energy welling up in me, I picked up my pace to what felt like a sprint, and ran the final meters slapping high-fives with the spectators. I stretched my arms over head and crossed one of the most famous lines in sports. I had done it!
Volunteers placed a medal around my neck, a mylar blanket (which I have a new found respect for) over my shoulders, and post-race bag in my hands. I shuffled forward with the hundreds of other runners, sipping slowly on water and trying to assess my physical condition. There are many stories about runners passing out, throwing up, or being general delirious at the finish line. They are all true. Thankfully, with the exception of a little loss of balance for a moment, none of those ills affected me. But I saw more than my share of misery and felt for each pained runner. (I should note that the race officials were very good at attending to these runners and I saw more medical services in this one area than I think I'd ever witnessed before. Indeed the NY Times did a great article about the new methodology the planners are now using.)
Once I was able to exit the park at 77th Street I headed downtown to Team Hole in the Wall's post-race meeting point, which was at the ABC Studios on 66th Street. What this meant is that after running 26.2 miles I essentially walked another to completely finish my race. That half mile back from the park exit seemed to take longer than a mile on the race course, but once at the meeting point I was surrounded by my family, which had seen me along the route and then come into Manhattan. It was a perfect way to finish such an amazing day.
It took a lot of work and hundreds of training miles, but the satisfaction of finishing the race is indescribable. Although my goal was to break 4 1/2 hours, I am not about to complain that my official time was 4:30:04. After all, there is always next year.....
(Stay tuned for an additional post about the marathon and additional pictures when they become available.)
You've done the impossible...inspire me to want to run a marathon.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations !!
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