Really, that’s a pretty good summary
. But settle in, because I’ve got the longer version coming up.This all started waaaaay back in 2012 when my mother wanted to run this as her first full marathon. We signed up, and like everyone else, when through the whole Sandy-induced rollercoaster of emotions and events when it was cancelled. We found out when we got off the plane in Newark, and I remember asking my mother if she wanted to run a marathon or this marathon – and it was this marathon. So we drank gin & tonics, shopped, and got home as quickly as we could. If it had only been me, I don’t think I would have gone back. But it wasn’t just me, so I put on my big girl socks and we signed on again.
We arrived on Friday night and had just enough time to get to the hotel and go to bed. We headed off to the expo first thing on Saturday, and that was my first taste of the scale of the race – it was MASSIVE! The lineup for package pickup was out the door, down the block, and around the corner! It moved fast, and we were in and had our bibs in short order. We went into the expo and found ourselves immersed in running retail overload. We staggered out an hour later with a few items (okay, more than a few), then did a little more non-running shopping on the way back to the hotel. We met up with a friend of mine from work who was there as well for dinner, then went to bed early.
Race day starts early – we were up at 4:30 and out the door at 5:15. We got to Bryant Park on the subway really quickly, and were loaded on a bus really quickly. We got a nice view of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from the bridge itself, then unloaded on Staten Island. Security was tight but everyone was really friendly. We got to the orange start village and realized… we’ve got almost 4 hours to wait! They had coffee, tea, hot water, hot chocolate, and some of the best bagels I’ve ever eaten. We grabbed some hot drinks and food and hunkered down to wait. I had brought some of the skiing handwarmers with me, and had brought some extras. I wound up not needing them all, so looked around for the coldest looking people I could find to give them away. One woman I gave them to was from Tennessee, and when I explained how they worked, she looked at me in amazement and asked, “Who thinks of things like this?”. People who have 7 months of winter, that’s who! We were sitting next to 2 guys from Germany who were in an earlier wave than us, and they gave us their cushions to sit on after they headed off to the corrals. Really a neat atmosphere in the start village, all in all. This was the first point where I was convinced of the “rightness” of our decision to come back, and suddenly felt very happy with no reservations about being there.
We were in the last wave starting at 10:55, and our goal time was 5 hours. My mother has a half PB of 2:09, and a recent half of 2:12, so we thought this was a reasonable goal on a challenging course. My job was to be coach, motivational speaker, cattle-prod wielder, and Sherpa as needed. I was determined to keep us to 7 min/km max, no matter what! So we lined up (in the 65th wave!), listened to “New York New York” and the gun, shed a few tears… and we were off!
I spent the first 2 miles forcing my mother to slow down. Actually, I spent the first 8 miles doing that! The bridge wasn’t nearly as challenging as I thought it would be, and we hit Brooklyn really quickly. 4th Avenue in Brooklyn is long and the weather was pretty chilly. There was a constant headwind and a little rain through here, but nothing too bad. We settled into a steady pace and worked at just maintaining it, despite the almost constant up & down hills. Brooklyn turned into Queens (where my mother lived when she was a girl for a few years. I asked her if this was how she pictured coming back for the first time in 60 years… I got a drty look and a laugh for that!), and then the Queensboro Bridge. This was one of the harder parts of the course – it’s a long, quiet bridge at a point where you’re getting tired. But again, we kept a steady pace, and this is where we started to pass people at a very steady pace. The end of the bridge is the 16 mile point, and between here and the end we passed hundreds (or more) people, which was a big boost.
Coming off the bridge drops you onto 1st Avenue in Manhattan… and it is INSANE. That’s the closest I’ll ever get to feeling like a rock star. The crowds are big, loud, and crazy! We worked our way steadily north towards the Bronx, and I could tell that my mother was starting to feel tired. I tried to encourage her at this point by pointing out that we were into the single digits for remaining miles and just talked her through the Bronx. As we got back to Manhattan, I noticed we were at 130th Avenue and realized Central Park South was way down at 59th Avenue – wisely, I kept that to myself. By the time we hit Central Park, my mother was still maintaining her pace but obviously struggling. She had stopped talking and had a look of grim determination on her face. It doesn’t help that 5th Avenue hits a nasty uphill at this point, but I stopped asking her how she felt and just kept urging her on. In the park, the miles just seemed to slow right down. The sun was going down and shining right into our eyes, and the hills seem enormous. For the first time, my mother said she needed to walk. I decided that it was time for tough love, so I told her we could walk to the next lamp post, then we would run again. And incredibly, she could actually do it!
We hit Central Park South and the noise was unbelievable! Once we hit the 800m to go sign, I started telling her that she only had twice around the track to go… then once around. She was clearly struggling and had nothing left. I was doing the math on my Garmin and figured we were going to just miss the 5 hour mark, but I told her that if she had ANYTHING left in the tank , now was the time to pick it up. She had nothing left, and could barely keep up her pace. She was actually a little disoriented and had trouble telling where the finish line was. We got across and I looked at my Garmin… 5:00:15! It was terrible finish chute etiquette, but we stopped dead and threw our arms around each other. Our family at home were watching online and got this picture of the live finish line camera:
A few more tears may have been shed
. We did the cold zombie shuffle out of the park and got our massive orange ponchos (which were awesome – I kept mine and it’s now in the winter kit in the trunk of my car!), then shuffled back to our hotel which was blessedly within shuffling distance of the finish line.
I was worried that my mother might be disappointed that we were so close to sub-5, but she didn’t care. She said that in the last 8k, she assumed that we were well over the 5 hour mark, and thought we’d finish in 5:15-5:20. The 5:00:15 was a thrilling surprise, and she just didn’t have those 15 seconds left in her by the end. We ran the first half in 2:29:17, so I was very happy with the pacing overall. She was actually 25th in her AG (W65-69)! Dinner and a glass of bubbly rounded out the evening - after long, hot showers!
The next morning we went and got our medals engraved. In the line, the 2 men in front of us turned out to be the 2 German runners who gave us their cushions in the start village! We chatted with them while we waited – despite the 50,000+ finishers, it still felt like a small town! We went and got matching silver Tiffany pendants to commemorate the race, then packed up and headed home.
Overall, I’m thrilled that we went. NYRR may not know what to do in a natural disaster, but they sure know how to run a race when things go as planned. NYCM is kind of the "mullet" of road races - business in the front, party in the back
. I watched the ABC special on the PVR when I got home, and it feels incredible to have been running in the same event (albeit half a day behind!) as the professional race that happened up front. Someday, I’ll go back and run NY for myself, but I can’t imagine a better way to do it for the first time than with my mother. I’m still sore (it’s still 42k of hills, after all!), but not worn out or exhausted. It's tiring in a different way to pace someone else, especially when you're very wrapped up in their goals. I’m taking a few days off, but neither of us has really decided what comes next.Sorry for the long report, but if any race deserves this many words, it’s NY!
You both rock. Your mom for hitting her time goal (what's 15 seconds), and you for being a great pacer.
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