A Day at the Races

I am not a runner. I’m not physically programmed to be one. Even running for a minute on the treadmill makes me want to hurl. My husband, on the other hand, ran in college and was a professional runner after college. He lives to run. So much so that he decided to run the NYC Marathon for the first time this past Sunday.

In support for his efforts, I enlisted the help of my best bud to journey through the city to follow him. I looked over the course map with her and we decided we’d start our cheering in Bay Ridge. Not too far off the Verrazano Bridge, we thought we would catch him while he was still relatively fresh.

We met up at 9 am and jumped on the subway to make our way to Brooklyn. Everything was going fine until I had the bright idea to try to catch the express train at 14th street, not realizing that weekend subway work made this impossible. It was ok though. We got on the next train out of Manhattan and into Kings County we went. We had heard from others that the runners wouldn’t get to Bay Ridge until 10:30. Well, they were wrong!! As we climbed up the stairs from the subway, I heard the cheering and yelling. I was worried I had missed my husband. But there in front of my eyes was his bib number. And there he was too!! He handed me his fleece vest and we cheered him on. He raced by when we remembered that we didn’t get a picture of him. We chased after him while I dug through my purse for the camera. As it almost fell out of my hand, my friend, who was way ahead in her pursuit, stopped as did I. If I had dropped that camera, I would have been in the doghouse!!

From there, we went to see a friend who we were planning to watch the race with. And we decided to see her new apartment. We then decided we were hungry so we went to have brunch. We figured we had plenty of time to get to the city.

But we didn’t!! Not according to the runner alerts text messages I was getting and not according to the application my friend was using to track my husband. He was going to finish the race in 3:03:03 at the pace he was running. Our dawdling wasted almost 2 hours. We had to race back to the city abandoning our idea of going to Park Slope to catch him somewhere else.

Before ducking into the subway, we realized (thanks to our handy dandy apps!) that he was going to finish in little less than an hour. Would we be able to get back into the city in time?

No, of course not, because Murphy’s law follows me wherever I go. The train decided to take more than an hour lurching between stops in Manhattan. The time was now a little after 1 and we couldn’t tell if he had crossed the finish line because the apps weren’t reloading. We walked quickly up to Central Park West at my husband and my designated meet up spot. And we waited, and waited, and waited. We kept checking our apps and nothing was happening. We realized after a while that the 3:03:03 wasn’t counting from the minute he started but the actual hour he was expected to finish based on his pace. Not from the time that the race had begun. What do you want? This was the first time we watched a marathon, darn it! 3:03 came and went and still no sign of my husband.

I began to worry. I expected some cramping, sure. Some slowing down. But when his expected time came and went, I didn’t know what else to expect. It was getting colder and so many runners were coming out of the exit. Some bleeding from the friction tears along their thighs, blue shivering lips were seen in many finisher’s faces, ice packs wrapped around people’s knees. And we waited and I worried. Even though I was cracking jokes with my friend about how I could never run a race. We commented on how the early finishers seemed so fresh and sprightly as if they hadn’t run 26.2 miles at all! It was amazing to me since I was already sore from running a block and a half to catch up to my husband earlier in the day.

As I looked through his fleece vest to see if there was any indication of a number that I could call, I looked up and there was the Mexican in the crowd before me. He looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him. His eyes teared up as did mine. I smiled at him and he made a sign to meet a few feet down. My friend and I walked down and as usual, we lost him again. We stood in the crowd looking to and fro for the 6’2” Mexican and we couldn’t locate him. Finally I noticed him way down in front of us. We finally met up. We congratulated him on his accomplishment and then my job changed from supporter to caretaker. It was a wonderful adventure not only for me, my friend and my husband but for so many people.

(To all the runners and families and supporters of the NYC Marathon)