Marathon Sunday is probably my favorite day in NYC. I have written about this plenty of times before, but I’ll say it again; The way that the city comes together on Marathon Sunday to support all of the runners, is like nothing else I have ever experienced.Continue reading
On 59th St. around mile 25.5 [Photo: Anwar Ragep]
Last Sunday I ran my 12th marathon. It was a big deal for me, personally, for a number of reasons. It was my first post-injury race. I had family come into town and run it with me. It was NYC’s first big event like this in the post-covid era. I hadn’t run a marathon in 5 years. For the past 14 weeks I have thought about this race every single day. When I was laying in bed Saturday night before the race, I felt so excited to go run. I really put in the time and effort to train for this thing. Even though I still have some lingering congestion from the super-cold that appears to be going around the city right now, I knew that I was recovered enough that it would not be a factor.
Rounding the corner from West CP Drive onto 59th St. [Photo: Anwar Ragep]
This was 50th iteration of the NYC Marathon. But because of covid related travel restrictions for foreign citizens entering the country, international participants were largely absent this year. In an effort to pad the gap, NYRR offered automatic entry to members of all of the local clubs. As a result, my brother-in-law was able to score a bib. My sister actually also got entry, but ended up having to defer because of a stress fracture that she suffered during training. She made the trip out to NYC anyway and joined the cheering crew, along with Britt and our friend Anwar, who provided most of these great photos!
Post race with Britt, and Britt with the sign she made [Photos: Anwar Ragep]
Race day started out awesome. My brother-in-law Jessie and I arrived in the start village nice and early. It was chilly, but not miserably so, especially once the sun came up. I was super fired up by the time the gun went off. My first few miles were way too fast. But I was able to rein it in by the time I hit mile 10 or so. Ultimately energy was not an issue, but pain sure was. starting around mile 16 I started to get a familiar burning/stabbing sensation where my IT band wraps around the outside of my right knee. It got bad enough that I needed to stop and stretch it out a handful of times. It slowed me down a lot, but honestly I’m glad that I didn’t try to just push through it.
[photo: Anwar Ragep]
My finish time goal was to do 3:45 or better. The last time I did this race was six years ago and I did a 3:43, so it seemed like a reasonable goal. By the time I made it to Central Park I looked at my watch, saw that I was in the low 3:20s and realized that if I really kicked I might be able to get close to 3:35ish. Starting around Mile 25 I gave it all I had, and really kicked hard when I saw the sign saying I was only 800 meters from the finish. I ended up finishing just under 3:36, which I am very pleased about. Not only was it my PR for the course, but it was only about 10 mins off my best marathon time, ever!
With Jessie enjoying some victory beers after the race. [Photo: Brittany Maschal private collection]
One cool thing that the New York Times does after every New York Marathon, is devote an entire section to the marathon, the Monday after the race. It includes the name of each finisher with their finish time and overall place. They also run a handful of photos from the race, including the one below of the runners in the start queue on the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island. Upon closer inspection, I spotted my brother-in-law (highlighted below right). So cool!
I’m so grateful for all of the people who have supported me during my surgery recovery and training process, especially Britt. Sunday was a very special day for me and I will remember it my whole life.
In my personal and very biased opinion, the only thing better than running the NYC Marathon, is watching the NYC Marathon. Since I didn’t get in this year, and would have been too out of shape to run anyway, I opted for the latter. The weather was perfect. I had some cameras with me, as did my homey A-Raj (he was rocking a large format film rig). B came out with the dog. We cheered on friends and strangers, then had a really nice brunch afterward. Here are some snaps.
This is a kind of long and personal story about a race I ran last Sunday. The story actually starts several years ago. In a former life, I was a very avid runner. Everything from vacation schedules to weekly social activities revolved around running. I have never been exceptionally fast, or anything like that. But running was a hobby that I dedicated a lot of time and energy to. As I started to rack up races, I thought it would be cool to run 10 marathons.
By the end of 2011 I had completed nine marathon finishes, including NYC (twice). I was on a roll. During this process, I qualified for the 2012 New York City Marathon. When late October 2012 rolled around I was all trained up and ready to go. About that time, Hurricane Sandy came through and wrecked up this whole region causing the city to cancel the race. I wholeheartedly agree that cancelling the race was the correct decision. Even so, it was more than a bit disheartening for me to have put in so much work without being able to enjoy the reward. Since it was to be my 10th, I was determined to make this marathon really count. I had high hopes for a new PR. I had invited family to come from out of town. They made it as far as DC (from Alaska).
After the decision was made to cancel the race, they offered all of the would-be participants automatic entry to any one of NYC Marathons in the following three years. The let-down from 2012 caused me to have a lot of introspection relating to the way that running had basically consumed all of my free time. The hobby was especially time consuming when I was training for something and I was almost always training for something. I concluded that I would take a break from competing (against myself [I have never been fast enough to compete for real]), and just enjoy running. So I chose to use my automatic entry for 2014. I did run some races in 2013. But I ran with my friends for fun, and did minimal (if any) training.
When 2014 cropped up, I was ready to buckle down again and get serious about putting forth an honest effort that November. Since I had become very out of shape, I decided to start training in early summer. I had dropped a few LBs and started to pick up the pace by September. This is also when I crashed my moto, partially severing my left quadricep muscle. As one could imagine, the injury made walking quite difficult for a while and running was virtually impossible. Even though I had mostly recovered from the injury by the end of October, I had missed the most crucial weeks of training. I decided to cancel my entry to the race, seek a medical deferment and try again in 2015.
FF to 2015>> Almost every aspect of my life has changed since 2012. I have a different job. I live in a different neighborhood. I have a new partner in crime. I’m feeling generally more balanced and content with life. As I began training for the race this year, the idea of finishing a 10th marathon evolved into a symbolic mile marker (pun intended) for me. I saw it as a sort of capstone on transitioning to a different phase of life. This understandably probably sounds very corny. Just the same, I felt like those aspects of my life that I had been chasing since the beginning of 2012 had finally started to fall into place. In my mind, being able to finish this race would be a tangible piece of evidence of this.
I put together a 19 week training program. It wasn’t perfect. I missed some runs. But I had a good network of friends helping me stay accountable. Ultimately, even though I didn’t get back into perfect shape, I was able to get into viable marathon shape. A few weeks before the race I did an 18 mile race on a flat course and ended up inadvertently pacing about a quarter of a minute per mile faster than I had intended. This gave me a lot of confidence going into the end of October. The last few days before the race I was having a lot of anxiety. I hadn’t trained on hills at all. I was second guessing how well I would be able to keep my pace over the Queensboro Bridge, and up 1st Ave. And blah blah blah, this story is getting too long.
Paul Harvey-style, here is the rest of the story: Sunday morning November 1st came along, I woke up at 4:45 (thanks to daylight savings, it only felt like 5:45). I put on my sneaks and made the short walk to the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Battery Park. As soon as the ferry set sail, all of my anxiety faded very quickly. I was there on this giant orange boat with runners from all over the world. Various languages could be heard conversing in low voices about what we were all about to undertake. I watched my fellow marathoners, sharing bananas, texting loved ones and gramming the Statue of Liberty. All of this while we glided in unison over the calm grey predawn harbor toward the starting line. I was reminded of how this race meant so many different things to so many people. My fears of not being able to meet my self-imposed running goals transitioned into feelings of gratitude to be able to participate in such a grand event. I was also feeling grateful for all of the good things that have happened in my life since Hurricane Sandy.
My race went as well as it could have. The weather was perfect. I came out too fast (as always) and died early (as always). Along the course I saw my girlfriend cheering for me, not once, but twice. I saw friends who had come out to support, one of which snapped the photo above (thanks, Jon). Even though this course has always been traditionally slow for me, the energy was so amazing that I felt like I was winning the entire time. And even though I didn’t get a PR (or anywhere near), I did get my PR for the course. I finished a solid six minutes faster than I did last time I ran NYC.
I know that in this day and age it isn’t really a big deal to complete a marathon. For a lot of people, finishing ten is not even a great feat. But for me, when I crossed the finish line last Sunday, it was a very significant personal accomplishment. For me, it was the race of a lifetime.