On my 58th birthday I weighed 259 pounds, the day after I weighted 262. Something had to be done. So first I started walking to work instead of taking the bus, then, after about a month of doing that I started walking fast (oh, and eating less.) Things have kind of snowballed from there.
Here's what I wrote in June of 2005
Sometime around Memorial Day 2005 I decided to start running again. It has been a long time since I stopped running, almost ten years, and I haven't a clue why I stopped. I have been running since I was twelve years old. Back then I ran around Valley Street Park's Dirt Road. That capitalization is correct, it's official neighborhood name was, and is now for all I know, the Dirt Road. I've been running on and off then for the past forty six years. There are two things are true about my running: one, I am no good at it and two, I love doing it. By 'I am no good at it' I mean I have never been the fastest or even the semi-fastest, I am a plodder, a shuffler, I run like those old Asian men you see in old newsfilms -not moving quickly but making progress, gaining ground, but hardly ever passing anyone else on the road or path. I have become, or maybe I always was - in the words of a great coach I once had who included himself in the group - one of the turkeys who make the speedy ones look good. Of course, I had to start over. Ten years is a long time once you pass fifty and in the past ten years I had had foot problems. Everyone in New York City has foot problems. Everyone's feet are pounded every day, beaten on the cement, tripped on the curbings, whacked, swacked or stepped on on the subway or the bus. There are as many podiatrists in the city as pizza parlors. Signs and ads for 'Foot Pain' are everywhere. So, two things happened, I bought a pair of sneakers that fit and my feet didn't hurt and I got the invitation to my fortieth high school reunion. Oh HO, so that's it. Can't face the old, really old in some cases, crowd being the pudgy boy, right? Well, yes. There's nothing like an honest answer to puncture a ribbing. First, I started walking, getting ready for the days in late June when I would be on the boardwalk in Avon, when I would start running again. I walked to distant subway stations, West 4th Street or Columbus Circle, or I played 'walk fast until the bus passes you' on 23rd Street anyone can be a champion at that game. Or I walked down to the Frying Pan on the Hudson to meet friends and then walked up the river park to 79th Street, anything to get a few minutes of distance. So here I go. Going.
And I kept going.I'm down about sixty five pounds from my weight of April 2005, though still carrying way too much poundage. (196) I didn't stop after the reunion (at which I was a smash) I just kept on running.I'm faster now than I was, it would be harder to be any slower I guess, I beat about half of the men in my age group, but that's not why I run.
I run because I like it.I like getting out in the wind and the sun and I like looking at the top of a hill and knowing I can just trot my way up that thing and pay it no mind. I like the cold water in the fountains and I like the feeling I get when the finish of a loop arrives.Tomorrow is going to be a good day. I'm going to run through all five boroughs of the city and finish in the park that I love so much.Thanks to all of you for all of your interest and support. It's meant a great deal to me.
So now the ING NYC MARATHON
Here I go. Going long
It's a long time to do anything
3am 7 hours to start
Wide awake. Is it the time change? The cats don't know about the time change and want me to get up. Get up. Give snacks to cats. Three greenie fish each. Lay back down. Wide awake. The fast music from the training site is playing in my head. Dit dit dit dit di boom. This is not good, I want to start out sloooow.
Ditdit dit dit boom boom. I roll on my side and stare out the window at the branches of the trees. Good. They are not moving, maybe the winds have already died.
Dit dit dit dit di boom.
4am Six hours to start.
I get up. I wash my face and weigh in. 197.2 Great. The carbo-loading of the past week hasn't pushed me over 200 pounds. I'm still 60 pounds less than I was two years ago. The cats are very excited, there's a chance I may have forgotten about the other greenie fish and they will get seconds. I grind the coffee, throw a frozen bagel in the microwave and get the espresso maker going.My running stuff is ready to put on. It was checked two dozen times, no three dozen times, last night. I pull on my shorts, the orange jersey and get my socks on just as the coffee starts flowing. I foam the milk. Zap the bagel for 38 seconds and give the cats three more greenies each. I put on my shoes. I check to see that I have ten energy gels in my pockets. In the back pocket, zipped up are my Amex, my MetroCard and forty bucks cash and emergency paper towels. For emergencies.I sign on to A2K. I re-tie my shoes.Sip coffee. Post something about here I go.I re-tie my right shoe.I re-tie my left shoe.
Here I go.
5:00AM 5 hours to start
5:frigging 20AM!! On the A train finally! after waiting and waiting and waiting. (What is the NYC Subway Weekend Rule? Right. No trains run on the weekend the way they run at other times.) Next find out number 1 train not stopping at 59th street after getting off at 59th street to catch the 1. Find that out from group of out of town runners-a woman from Kansas City with her husband and five guys from Philadelphia-New Jersey-Florida-England and Japan. I tell them I'm from the city and we will take the R from 42th. They believe me, get on the next A train and follow me through the tunnel at 42nd Street down to the N/R platform. There is much talk amongst us. I am the only one never to have a run a marathon.
I remember that I didn't eat the bagel in the microwave.
6AM 4 hours to the start
We are still on the R train. We still have to get to the Staten Island Ferry, cross the harbor, get on a shuttle bus, get to the launching area, put out baggage on the trucks, re-tie our shoes and get ready. No one is panicked. There's a ferry every half hour that can take 5000 runners.
We get to the ferry at 6:40 and I tell everyone to get as close as they can to DOOR ONE. We slip through the crowd, inching our way forward. There are at least eight thousand runners already there waiting, some sitting near the door, but most are standing back. Our little group gets within twenty yards of the door. Massa, the guy from Japan, says it's just like home.TWO ferries arrive at 6:55 and they announce boarding. Everyone moves forward elbow to elbow to elbow. It's a crush moving slowly to the door. Someone has their hand on my tush. The guy from Japan says it's just like home.
I lead our little group to the front of ferry. We'll be some of the first to get off to get onto the busses.We look out the windows. Before the boat turns they can see the Statue of Liberty. I am suddenly starving. I eat one of my gels.The Verrazano Bridge swings into view. It looks very long in the morning light.
7:30 AM 2.5 hours to Start
I've lost the group in the newest crush. There are ten thousand runners waiting patiently for the next line of busses to arrive. We are elbow to elbow again. The whole St.George Station is a sea of humanity. Slowly the mass moves up the stairs. Some people are trying to go out the side door, but I've run two Half Marathons here and know that out that door there is no way to get to the bus platform. I tell that to some folks near me. We watch as the escapees sullenly re-appear.
The mob keeps moving. There are no impatient voices. Hundreds of busses are lined up as we exit and move down the line onto them. We roar off towards the bridge.
8AM Two Hours to the StartFirst, I have to pee. So do the other 39,926 runners. I decide to wait. I need to find my baggage truck so I can put the clothes that I will put on at the finish on the truck. I need to find my start corral where we will line up a thousand at a time to get in line for the mass start. Voices over the loud speakers repeat instructions, directions and greetings in French, German, Japanese, Italian and English.There is a buzz of humanity here. I wait in a long line in front of some porta-potties. Some people are in and out in seconds. Some doors never re-open the whole time I am there.(I am one of the quick ones)
9AM One hour to go.
I cannot move. I have been caught in another massive crowd. This time all trying to get to the baggage trucks at the same time. Luckily, I know where the truck I need to get to is, many people don't know which way to go, but there is no going anyway. No one is moving. I cannot see what is holding up the crowd, but everyone is running out of time. We'd like to get our stuff on the trucks, we'd like to have some time to stretch, we need some time to breathe, maybe have another pee, but there is no moving.
9:30 Thirty minutes to go.
I haven't gotten to the truck yet but I see a skinny fellow ahead of me slide between two of the UPS trucks with his bag. As the crowd inches forward I get to the same gap and though I am a bit wider than the other guy, I slip into the space and then pray that the trucks are the same distance apart at the other end as they are at this end. They are. I pop out the other side and there is my truck and -- there is no one putting baggage on it-- no line of frantic runners, no crowd. This is so weird.
I give the bag to the lady on the truck, she checks my number and I am off to battle my way back through the crowd to the corrals. Two cops have opened a piece of fencing and are letting all the people who have their bags on the trucks pass back through.
9:45 AM Fifteen Minutes to the Start
I can't get to my corral. All the others have already lined up one thousand strong, and there are fifteen corrals between me and mine, so I have to climb over a bunch of pipes and construction material to get past and around them. It's like a straddle exercise course except that I think at any moment I am going to fall and break an ankle. I've stripped down to just my running jersey and shorts with just my old faded green biking jacket (The one I wore on five thousand bicycle rides in Oklahoma.) keeping me warm. I'm slipping and sliding on the pipes and it take me forever to get to where I can cut through to the thousand people I supposed to be with.
9:58AM
We are moving down the path through a bit of woods to toll booths of the Verrazano Bridge. Our view of the bridge is blocked by a line of busses. I stop on the left to re-tie my shoes and am joined first by two others and then three more runners, all of us, frantically pulling on laces and trying to make loops the right length, with the right tightness, we are all kneeling there like some kind of pray group for madmen.
I look up, there are four, no five, helicopters above us.
We haven't made it around the corner of the buses, there is music blasting from the loudspeakers. Every one is talking and shaking hands and adjusting hats and sunglasses and shaking first one leg and then the other. I toss my old green jacket onto a fence, goodbye old friend.
I see a woman standing a few feet away. She is wearing a fleece coat and a full length woolen skirt, a head scarf covers her hair.
"How in the hell is she going to run 26.2 miles in that?" I say to myself.
But then the cannon goes off.
KA BOOM
And here I go.
Five hours of running.
Joe(That's a long time to do anything)Nation
The Start
The cannon's boom is still humming in the cables of the Verrazano bridge when we hear the last few bars of Sinatra's New York, New York ,the emcee screams something about Bruce and "Born to Run" begins blaring. See that backwards L of buses in the picture??
The spot I am standing in is behind the bottom of the L between the bus nearest the corner and the next one. There's a guy peeing between the two buses, the lady in the long skirt has disappeared. The air is filled with people shouting in French, "Viva la France!!" and Italian, "Italia, Italia, Italia!!" Somebody shouts "Let's go YANKees!"
We inch forward until I get around the corner and the view opens up.
There in front of me all the way up the bridge's span, as far as one can see, is a river of runners.
Heads are bouncing and bobbing, floating, rising, falling.
Hands and fists are being thrust into the morning air.
39,000 sets of feet, 39,000 sets of shoulders.
There's waves of runners and crosscurrents of runners, one part of the mass slows, another surges, a great tidalwave of every form of human being there is on earth, right here and flowing to the horizon.
There are flags, there are great arcs of balloons, the air is filled with the applause and helicopter noise and cheers in languages familiar and completely unknown.
as I began to run to the starting line it suddenly hit me that I was really there.
That,
after all the runs at the crack of dawn,
all the treks up the hill behind the Cloisters in the freezing cold,
all the slogging and jogging and traffic dodging,
all the hundreds of circuits of Central Park clockwise
and otherwise in every season and time of day,
all the races done to qualify,
all the miles up and down the East bank of the Hudson,
all those lung busting hills by the George Washington Bridge,
all those hills on Overlook and Bennett in the Heights,
every step and action from that first "speed walk" two and a half years ago,
from the twenty minutes per mile "run" to the lighthouse
to the last minute gallop for a personal record for 5M a week ago,
from buying my first real pair of running shoes
down to the two perfect doubleknots I just tied two minutes ago,
all of it
had brought me here to this moment.
The tears began flooding up on me but just before I really lost it
I heard a voice,
the same voice which had gotten me out of my bed on my days off work to run,
"Hey," the voice said, "now that you are here you actually have to run this frigging thing!! Then you can cry your eyes out."
"Okay." I said, "That's a deal."
And I crossed the start line behind six Italians holding hands as if they were finishing instead of just getting started.
Joe(and we went over the river and through the woods)Nation
The First Rule of Running a Marathon is
Do Not Start Off Too Fast
This seems like a reasonable and easy to understand concept.
It is also the easiest to break.
Hey! There I am breaking the rule!
Yes, that's me right in the center of that bunch, I'm wearing the orange shirt, black shorts and white hat? See me? See how I am surrounded by people who look a lot faster than I am? That's because I am.
On the back of that orange shirt is a Pace Team Time bib, I picked Four Hours and Forty Five Minutes because, well, because I thought I could do the race in four hours and forty five minutes.
At the start we were supposed to find out Pace Team Captains. These are people who have finished so many marathons that they can run one at whatever pace they want to. Four and half hours? No problemo . Five Hours? Sure thing.
"Just find the Pace Captain of your Pace Team and stay with them through the whole race. They will be carrying a big bunch of balloons so you can see them in the distance if you get behind. They run a steady pace, just tag along."
Yep.
The only problem was that I never saw my 4:45 Pace Captain at the start, nor did I ever see the 4:45 Pace Team Captain during the entire race, but that wasn't my problem going into the streets of Brooklyn.
The problem was all the Pace Team bibs around me in that picture say things like 3:30 and 3:15.
(Gulp.)
So right about the four mile point I began to slow down. A lot. At least I thought I was slowing down a lot, but every time at new mile marker came up, I was right on pace for a four hour and forty minute marathon.
Six mile goal? 1:05:13
Ten kilometer time?
(6.2 miles, close enough) 1:05:02.
So, I couldn't figure out what was going on. Was I out too fast? The numbers didn't say that, but all these speedy runners around me made me wonder... .
Meanwhile, the people of Brooklyn had turned out to greet the great herd of humanity, the world may have been running by them but they were the world as well. They were wonderful.
There were bands playing rock and bands playing metal and bands playing hot salsa. Everyone was cheering us, even the volunteers at the Gatorade and Water stops. Big bunches of people lined every sidewalk and every turn in the road. They shouted out Viva Italia! and Viva la France! and all the runner's names.
Stacey!
Hey, Mike!
Go, Danny, you're the man!
Stella, Stella, Stella!! (really)
(Note to self: wear your name on your front next time, you dope. No one looks at the runners once they are past them.)
Watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnxknAnBVk0 out to be the best training device of all. Although I had never been to that part of Brooklyn, (who goes to Red Hook on purpose?) I could see out there in front of me the church steeple and, at six miles, the big tall building that would mark the eight mile mark.
Joe(I was cruising.)Nation
What else does anyone do for five hours straight?
You pick:
Beat on a drum.
Rock in a chair.
Drive a car.
None of those are like running a marathon. It must be different for those who finish in two and half hours or even three hours. Those of us back in the mob are running the same distance, but moving our bodies twice as long. So what do you do when you are on the road that long?
You dodge potholes, manholes and the stuff runners have dropped.
Potholes can be round, oblong or Grand Canyon shaped. Manhole covers can from three to five inches below the surface but even if they are flush with the road, they sometimes are as slick as waxed paper. Runner's stuff includes hats, gloves, water bottles, forty dollar Fuelbelts (I saw four) armbands, kneebands, headbands and bandaids. (must have fallen off some tender spot)
The other main activity you engage in, other than the actual lifting of knees and moving forward, is obsessing about, er, attempting to be aware of, your body and it's functions.
"How's your right knee?
("'kay.)
"Really?" says the mother in your brain, "you're not just saying that?"
(Reeealllly)
Too hot?
Too cold?
Got a stitch?
"How's about your knee now?"
(sigh)
There is always something to listen to besides your body's inner whiner. There are bands of all kinds scattered along the route, some blasting hard banging metal music, others knocking out the knockout rock. Bursts of salsa and house musica flow out from the bodegas and every church has its choir out front belting out spirituals and the preachers preaching at the top of their lungs trying to save our Running-On-Sunday souls.
Some independent souls are out there helping too. Several people had Alicia Keyes on their boomboxes "Everything going to be allll right" and one guy had bagpipe music screaming out of his CD player. At one point in Greenpoint there was a woman standing all by herself on a long stretch of semi-dismal street, all by herself, but she was cheering and shouting people’s names and banging two noisemakers together loudly. Having a marathon party of one and loving it.
Hey, I just thought of something somebody does do for five hours only they do it for six. There is a high school band which plays the marathon every year. All they play, over and over, is the theme from "Rocky". Yes, that's right. All Rocky, all the time. A member of the band estimates he’s played the piece three to five hundred times over the years. (He’s an alum who comes back just to play.) It’s a six hour gig of “Gotta Fly Now…Trying Hard Now… http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/nyregion/05bands.html
The awareness-obsession list is checked as the miles tick off.
Thirsty?
Is that a rock in your shoe?
Is your chip still tied on?
Thirsty now?
Is it time yet for a gel?
Is your left sock trying to ball up against your big toe?
Is that a piece of glass in your shoe?
But suddenly, effortlessly it seemed to me, I was 12 miles in and on my way up the Pulaski Bridge into Queens
and, at 13.1, the marathon halfway point.
But,
I had violated Marathon Runner Number Two -
-----Don't drink too little, but sure as hell, don't drink too much.----
I had hit the Gatorade table at eight miles, had a gel, and stopped again at the ten mile mark. I was getting good at the walking/chugging fluids thing and there I downed two big cups of Gatorade. The water stops were not as chaotic as they had been rumored to be. I never had to wait more than a few seconds for someone to hand me a cup or two. The cups were pretty piled up by the time I arrived and the roadway was sticky with whatever sugars are in Gatorade. I sure it must make an interesting sound to hear 20,000 runners skiritch skiritch skiritching along.
I am usually well-hydrated before any race or run and have gone through several 10K races without drinking any fluids. On a couple of occasions like that, I have had to pee afterwards, I was so well pre-hydrated. So, what the hell was I thinking?
Now, as I topped the bridge, the awareness obsessing alarm was banging "Hey, boy, yooou gotta go."
Several cruel things were happening: right after you cross the Pulaski into Queens you see, just off to your left, the Queensboro bridge that you will race across into Manhattan. “Ah,” you say,” Manhattan is almost home”, but, just as you bring it into focus, just a little bit to the left, the race course turns to the right and the bridge slides back over your shoulder and out of sight
AND I really had to pee.
Joe(really)Nation
And so onward
I hit the halfway at 2:27:42. With a little luck, I could still beat five hours. The 4:45 on my back was pretty well out of reach unless there was a miracle tailwind in Harlem, but first I had a more immediate problem. I had to find a place to go.
It is not true that if you just keep running the urge will go away. I've found that out the hard way while training. Maybe it's being 60, but once the urgency arrives, you had better find a facility.
So, I wasted ten minutes or more, stopping at two separate rows of porta-potties to find thirty or more runners already waiting,(what a bunch of drinkers we runners are!) Some people took matters into their own hands.
But, even though I was tempted by the fences and the warehouse walls, I kept looking and trotting along finally spotting a nearly out-of-sight row of porta-johns with only TWO people waiting ahead of me.
The relief was great but all the stopping, the waiting, the cussing out of oneself for being so dumb, took something out of me besides the liquids.
It took me about a mile to get warmed up again and that brought me to the foot of the Queensboro Bridge.
We run across it's two mile span on the lower level instead of on top where there's a view. Part of the trek across you are in total darkness. I had to take my sunglasses off just to make out the shapes of the runners ahead and beside me. Somewhere about the middle we were all passed by two motorcycles with lights and sirens leading a mini-ambulance. It kind of sent a shudder through the crowd. Soon though, I was nearing the west end of the bridge and I could hear the shouts of the crowd down below us on First Avenue. I hoped that the storied "charge" that the runners get on making that final turn into Manhattan would hit me good.
Well, something hit me. The crowds were loud and there was, I admit, a burst of energy in me, but it only lasted a short while. What hit me was, unlike almost all of the rest of the course, First Avenue is a long, LONG, straight-as-a-yardstick, run. And, unlike the the streets of Brooklyn, there are no distant landmarks you can hang your mind on, no "I just need to get to that church steeple way up there" to help you tick off the distance. It becomes a long sojourn through similar block after similar block.
A real help @ the 19 mile mark was the PowerBar Chocolate gels they were giving out. Now, I had been eating a few of these chocolate Refuels during training and, to say the least, they tasted like mud. Sweet mud, but mud nonetheless. Now, at 19 miles and having had only one Tri-berry gel for breakfast (you remember I forgot to eat my bagel) and three orange gels so far in the race, I was looking forward to having something chocolate. Well, YUMMMYY!!!! That gel tasted so good, Godiva good, with just a hint of hazelnut aftertaste. My mouth just exploded with tastebud joy. I wished I had snagged a couple more. That's when I knew I was losing it. Nothing in a gel pack had tasted that good in training. It had to be some kind of cosmic joke or I was having a sensory fit. I said to myself "You could eat real mud right now and it would taste Godiva good." That made me laugh and I felt better and knew that nothing was going to stop me now.
I began to see people that I had seen at the start. The two Italians in their green and red on white, I saw a married couple who had been with me by the buses, he's a six footer, she's maybe five one. They had "I'm her husband." and "I'm his wife." on their shirts with arrows pointing in the direction of one another. I didn't think it would be possible for two people so different in size to run that far together, but there they were at 19 miles plus. He was hurting and she was chatting away like a little bird. There was the blind runner being aided by his sighted partner. There's a commitment for you. Lead a blind runner for 26 miles through the crowds and the potholes and the Gatorade cups. There's a commitment for you. Run 26 miles through the five boroughs of New York while blind. All I had to do was run.
Hundreds of people were walking by the time I got to 125th. I was looking ahead for the Willis Ave Bridge. I wanted to see how close I was to four hours on the road. As I hit the corner at the entrance into the Bronx my watch said 3:57:00. I was still on my mark! How could that be possible? Maybe I could beat five hours? Six miles in a hour? Shucks. On a good day I could do six miles in .... wait a minute....six times nine minutes and twenty two seconds is .... the crowd in the Bronx was incredible. Everyone had said that we would see all that many people at the North end of the course. They were wrong. The sidewalks were filled and there was a huge balloon canopy over the street and band after band after band. And we are only in the Bronx for about a mile! Oh, the answer is no, I am not going to run six point two miles in 57 minutes. Not today.
But I am feeling good now, I know I am just crawling along, I can see the times on my watch. It's taking me longer and longer to do the next mile, but I am moving, I am running the whole way.
Running about as slow as anyone can run and still be running, but running.
We are on Fifth Ave now and headed South towards the finish at Central Park's Tavern on the Green. I ooze past 125th Street for the second time today and here is Marcus Garvey Park. Marcus Garvey Park is where I have been running to maybe ten times in the past two weeks. I make the corner after skirting around the park and there is the final stretch of Fifth down to the Park. I can see the tree I have learned marks the corner of the park and I head for it as fast as I can go which is not fast. The minutes are clicking off now. I just want to finish in fairly good shape, not look like some of the disasters I am passing left and right. There are people standing still, holding knees, stretching hamstrings, massaging thighs. There are people, good looking athletic people, walking, semi-dragging one foot after the other. As I pass the water table near the bottom of the hill at 110th Street I see a woman foldup like a falling sheet. Several people rush to her.
Now I am at the final long hill up to the Park entrance at 90th. Twenty blocks that I have trudged up again and again in practice, dodging the buses, darting across the red-lighted streets and squeezing my way between cars to get to the top. My wife and her best friend, and my best friend from high school and her best/boyfriend and my older sister and several others are waiting for me at the 23 mile point. 106th Street. Right in the middle of the hill, it will be so good to see real familiar faces, what a charge that will be, I tell myself. Go for it, now and look really good as you run past them all. (Man, oh man, my thighs are heavy.)
Just then, something really weird happens. The FIVE HOUR balloon Team Leader bounces by.
What? I could still get FIVE HOURS? How? What? WHa! I get right behind her. She is a blond woman about thirty years old and looks as if she has just stepped out of a Starbucks. She is 22.9 miles into a marathon and she is shouting at the top of her voice," Come on, stay with me now, you'll get to tell your kids you did five hours and you get your name in the New York Times." She laughed and kept trotting along holding the stick with the balloons over her head. She and the ten or fifteen runners with her were just a little ahead of me now and I gather everything I have, every fiber, every ounce, every sweat gland is put into action and I charge up the hill with them.
The next thing I know I am at 95th Street and still churning away at the hill but the balloons are drifting further and further ahead of me and I can see that I will never be able to keep up with them. AND....oh, crap, I missed seeing my sweetie! I almost turned around to go back, but I knew that would be a disaster for me. I really felt so bad to miss them all after they had stood in the frigid wind for so long just to see 39,000 strangers drift by, but, I kept going.
That last plunge after the team leader was not a good idea. I really had nothing left now and I was turning into the park for the final 2.2 miles. Luckily, I had run this roadway more than a hundred times. I know exactly where the road dipped and turned and I was really looking forward to zooming down Cat Hill for once. I was plodding along. When I look at the numbers now I am shocked. (At one race late last year I had done the last mile of this run in just under eight minutes. This last Marathon Mile took me more than twenty-four minutes.) I had to do a kind of crab walk down Cat Hill to keep my right knee from screaming at me and I stopped for a moment by the Boat House to rub it back into shape. Once I had it's permission to continue there was still the big uphill to make and then the little downhill to the South End of the Park.
Once you are on Central Park South you think that you are finished, but you are not. It's full of potholes and it's juuuuusst a little, nearly invisibly, uphill. Then you make that final turn into the Park again and there are crowds of people yelling, exhorting, pleading, cheering (Jesus, these people have been cheering for five hours!!! How do they do that??) And there they are -- the three little hills to the finish line. I suddenly feel as if I have taken a cold shower, everything comes alive, there is the last familiar bump in the road, there is the second one and now I say I say as I say in practice "Hill? What hill?" and I am laughing and running for the brown mat finish line and trying to look up and hold my arms up so I don't cover my number and screw up my finish picture... ...... .....
And then it's over. And I've made it. 
Epilogue
There are times in a person's life when a week feels like a month. I've had two of those weeks recently. The week before the run, as it's become known around here, as in "I've met two other people who were in 'the run'.", that week was at least twenty days long. The nights were sleepless or filled with dreams of varying degrees of weirdness. I was as wound up as cornered cat and had to do a considerable amount of biting the inside of my mouth to keep from speaking what was left of my mind. There was no Saturday in that week.
The week after the run was different everyday. Right after the finish and the long (one mile!) walk to get your chip clipped off, get wrapped up in tin-foil (ah..nice and warm...)find your baggage truck again and then meet-up with your fanbase and family, we went to dinner.
Or rather, the group headed to the restaurant and I headed into a hot shower to discover a large roadrash burn under my right arm where my jersey must have gotten bunched up. (That stings.) I never felt a thing during the run. I inventoried everything else: no blisters (yea!, right size shoes and Thorlos sox, no knee pain (no kidding), no bloody toenails and (hmmmm) I really felt great. I walked up the hill to a fabulous dinner with my sweetie and the two best friends a guy could ever have.
My hat says it "Life is Good."
Monday, of course I went to work! What else? I had my medal in my pocket. I showed it off. When Frank down at the florists laughed when I said I was buying flowers for my sweetie because I ran right by her at the marathon and said "You didn't run the marathon." I flashed it at him. Hah!
Tuesday, I felt awful. Why is that? Adrenalin wearing off?
Wednesday, worse. Couldn't concentrate on work and, dun dun dun dun, my right knee was doing weird things, like aching on the inside and then the backside and then the knee cap. Advil for everybody.
I don't remember Thursday.
I was going to run a little on Friday but instead I slept.
My knee was killing me on Saturday, it was hard going downstairs and my head started to fill with those kind of thoughts that only real pessimist have. "that was your last run.' "Hope you like arthritis medicine' 'What color cane are you going to carry.' My inner pessimist is a bad ass. More Advil. Massage. More Advil.
Sunday comes and I kid you not------there is no pain. It's gone. Vanished. It's as if one of the ministers from one of those holy-roller congregations had come by and healed me. I had to work Sunday so right after I locked up the store I went for a little run. Just a mile, but it was the same one mile run that two years had been my first attempt at moving at more than walking speed.
Everything I've learned during this time came floating up as I passed the gates of Gramercy Park:
No more races where I am going to meet someone without taking my cellphone.
No more drinking liquids during a race just because the table seems clear.
No more starting out with the speedy racer types just to end up at the end being passed by a couple of guys in banana suits.
And, on the good side,
all of the distance, every step of those 1200 practice miles, paid off,
all of the hills brought the hills down
(What hill? What bridge?),
all of those hours made the hours feel shorter,
(what? three hours already?)
all of the visualizations made the way seem familiar
and finally, all of the uplifting confidence building pep talks I gave myself
(Man, you are so strong!) fought off all of petulant cries of my inner whiner man.
(I hardly heard from him all that day.)
Today, I went to the gym and checked on my stash of spare clothes. I got the flyer for the winter weight training program (gawd, could you have skinnier arms?) and I just laid out my running tights and sweatshirt for tomorrow's morning run at 5am.
Joe(Here we go again.)Nation
