the baby boomer: running new york
by The Baby Boomer
We took the pledge in an Italian restaurant in the North End, basking in our achievement of just completing the Boston Marathon. That race wasn’t even four hours old, none of us had even showered, and yet here we were agreeing to run the New York marathon six months hence.
Boston is the most prestigious marathon in the running world. The old saying is still true: “There are only two marathons in the world that you need to qualify for: one is Boston, and the other is the Olympic marathon.” New York, however, is a people’s race. While my four-hour finishing time in Boston put me well back in the pack, a similar time in New York would place me in the top half of the field. New York typically has two or three times the number of entrants as Boston. The race course touches all five boroughs, including a long run up 1st Avenue and a finish at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.
For many years, the heart and soul of the New York Marathon was its founder and champion, Fred Lebow. Fred was always at the finish line to greet the winner, and, more impressively, was still at the line to greet the stragglers who dragged their butts in eight hours later. The year I ran, 1990, the weather was supposed to be unusually warm for the race, a bad omen for the runners. Fred announced that he ordered an extra 300,000 cups, bringing the total to 1.5 million cups to be placed along the course. He said: “Better to have a few thousand left over, than be one short.” When Fred died of cancer in 1994, the running world lost one of its heroes.
Race day starts early. You catch a bus in Manhattan around 6:30 a.m. that takes you to the start in Staten Island. The warm-up area is the home of the world’s longest urinal (285 feet) It’s tradition for women to position themselves and their cameras at one end and take a group shot.
I had on a new running shirt that day. On the front it said “YELL LOOKING GOOD BARRY” and on the back it said “YELL STOP WALKING BARRY.” A good, unique shirt is crucial for getting crowd support. Before I even get off the bus, the shirt garnered lots of attention from other runners: a good sign.
The steepest part of the entire course is actually in the first mile, when you run over the Verrazano Bridge. I was running with my training partner Steve. While it’s imperative to train with someone, once the race starts it’s understood that everyone will run their own race at the pace that works for them that day.
The first few miles, it’s all crowd control, as the pack doesn’t begin to thin out until it hits Brooklyn. Finally, Steve and I settled into a nice rhythm. There were bands playing music every couple of miles. The miles ticked off.
After crossing the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan, the crowds got exponentially bigger. My t-shirt was very popular amongst the crowd, with hundreds of people yelling the slogan on the front. With the runners, however, it was a different story. Everyone around me was saying: “who’s Barry?” as person after person in the crowd called out to me.
Eventually, I begin to tire. Steve was willing to hang with me, and although we never walked, we slowed down our pace. Our wives were manning a water stop around mile 22 in Central Park, which gave us a boost. We crossed the finish line in 4:28, holding our hands in triumph. To finish any marathon is an accomplishment, regardless of the time.
After the finish line, there was a long half-mile path to the buses, where our changes of clothes awaited. Suddenly, I felt claustrophobic due to all the finishers, and needed to jump a small fence to get away from the crowds. We waited there for about 15 minutes, and eventually begin to walk to the buses.
We took a bus (marathon runners ride free on NY buses and subways) to meet our group, and had a rowdy time in the bar, tossing back one drink after another. In the glow of the moment, Steve and I agreed to each play a lottery number based on our finishing time for a week, and split any winnings. I played 428 and he played 268 (converting to minutes). Incredibly, BOTH numbers hit in the one week that we played.
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