I had originally gotten through almost an entire blog post here about my first experience going to full distance, 26.2 miles back in November of 2019. But, I accidentally lost it to the ether and I was too grumpy to start over and write it again.
But I suppose it’s time I came back to this and actually smashed some words together. After all, it was quite the experience.
I can’t help but think back to middle school, before I had to move from Barrington and switch schools and do all that I really wanted to run cross country. The genesis of the idea is lost, but I remember I just wanted to do it, to run, but didn’t really get a chance until high school. I actually got lost on my first day of practice as my coach accidentally put me with the advanced squad and sticking with the “little guy” only worked for about 3 of the 5 miles (I had never run more than 2.5 EVER). That story should be its own post and probably will be, but cheers to Mr. Jon “Big Leg” Renzella for being the little guy that smoked me on my first day and our resulting friendship.
But, that’s where the journey began. A skinny kid wandering around a town he’s never really been to trying to find his way back to his school so he can stop running and go home. Picture 13-year-old me on that day and each day after school in the fall, running laps around the soccer field, trekking 3 miles to Shaw hill for hill repeats and then running back. The Powder Mill road 5 mile loop, Park street hill repeats, hiding from coach and going mudding through the woods with the seniors when it rained. 21 minute 5k races, running until I puke and hating but secretly loving that final sprint to the finish, that final test to use whatever gas I had left. Then the track team, indoor and outdoor for the last two years of school. The 1 mile and 2 mile events (I hated both), getting lapped by the better runners but being too stubborn to quit any race no matter much demoralizing or how painful it was.
But, that’s where the journey began. A skinny kid wandering around a town he’s never really been to yet, trying to find his way back to school but refusing to quit until he made it back. That same kid that simultaneously loved and hated the burn of the last hundred yards of a race, laying everything out regardless of how place he was in. That younger version of me getting lapped every race by the top runners in the two-mile race in indoor and outdoor track for two straight years, but doing it anyway because of some mutant form of grit that wouldn’t let him give in to the pain or humiliation no matter how hard they hit. I might still have his varsity letter somewhere even though he knew he got it for seniority and not for talent.
Then high school ends, college happens and he doesn’t feel like running anymore. He studies, parties, gets good enough grades and graduates. Younger-me has a dead-end job at a hotel and decides that’s not enough for him. Two suitcases of stuff is all he takes with him to Taiwan and a one year adventure turns into a 6 year sojourn that alters his life forever. He works out, trains in some kickboxing, but still doesn’t hit the pavement like he used to.
Three years of New York City, a soul crushingly difficult job, simultaneous graduate school work, and very, very little sleep later, it was time that I facilitated some change. I was unhappy at work, but stuck it out for the duration to not have any debt for grad school (and I loved those kids dearly).
Get a new job. Check. New diet, check. Fitness…? Hmm.
Back to basics then. Pavement time.
Now picture my first day running after more than a decade, sucking wind and really questioning what I was doing after running just a single mile. But I stuck with it and one mile runs turned into 3, turned into 5, then seven. I got better, stronger. I ran a 5k, the Percy Sutton, and the rabbit hole swallowed me whole. I kept training and ran a 10k a month later. Then, after just 3 months of training, the Staten Island Half Marathon.
“Holy shit, I did it” was my Strava title for that run. Holy shit indeed!
In November of that same year, fresh off the glow of running my first serious race, I went out to see some friends as they went the full distance during the NYC Marathon and it changed my life. The sheer energy of that day, the collective support of tens of thousands of strangers cheering on people they saw for just a few seconds, the grit of the seemingly endless stream of runners was simply magic. Running for my entire life had been like standing outside of an exclusive club, rain or shine, pain or glory, sticking it out day in and day out and I’d only just now seen inside the building, seen what lay beyond the 26.2 miles of velvet rope.
I had to do it.
It was two years and nearly 600 miles of training before I was at the starting line in Staten Island about to cross the Verrazano Bridge. I’d begun training for the race in earnest back in July and I’d pictured and envisioned and planned for what the race would be like every time I laced up. I watched youtube videos detailing the experience of others, read blogs and strategy guides, memorized my pace, looked at the course map over and over, and I still wasn’t ready for how it actually went down.
I hadn’t slept much; I never can the night before something that important. I had to be at the New York Public Library on 42nd street at 6am, which means I had to be out of my house before 5. I made the shuttle bus to the start right on time and caught a short nap as we drove through pre-dawn New York.
I found my starting village and hunkered down to wait for the next few hours until it was my wave’s turn to saddle up. It was cold, windy, and I had on enough layers to be just shy of comfortable. The bathroom lines grew to hilarious lengths where the strategy became to have a tinkle and then walk to the back of the line and start waiting again. All the while hearing the waves before me, the cannon boom that marked each start, and Frank Sinatra singing “New York, New York. I was trying to come to grips with the fact that I was about to run a rather unreasonable distance through all five boroughs.
Because 26.3 would be crazy, right?
Then it was time. My extra clothing went into the donation bins, one last trip to the bathroom while in the race corral, then the on-ramp to the bridge. The waiting. The cannon. The starting line. The race.
I felt like I was trying super hard not to sprint off the line but it was hard. The energy was unlike anything I’ve felt at any of the other 26 road races I’d run in New York. I was a touch bummed that I was on the lower deck of the Verrazano, but the horror stories of dripping pee and other fluids from the top deck seemed to be just that, stories. I vividly remember the blond girl I ran by about halfway across the bridge, limping a couple steps and collapsing in tears against the jersey divider while holding her knee. I imagined she had flown into New York after training for months, dreaming of the medal and saying “I ran NYC!”, but not today.
I kept on.
Things get blurry after that. I remember the scattered sweatshirts and other items on the other side of the bridge. The crowds in Queens and Brooklyn were utterly fantastic and helped keep my feet moving. Techno music, high fives from all ages, awesome signs (Pain is just the French word for breadI) so many smiles and cheers and love and support from the people of this great city. I felt pretty solid for the first 13.1, really looking forward to seeing friends and getting a smooch at the halfway point. I had planned well, knowing that on Vernon Blvd. you get a great view of runners as you turn right and make your way towards Manhattan. Melissa, Declan, and my pops met me there and I paused just long enough for a hug before I waved and trotted off into the second leg. 13.1 down, the same to go.
I kept on.
The Manhattan bridge felt interminable. The view was fantastic, the weather perfect, but at this point I had been running for about 2.5 hours and my body was beginning to rebel. My knees felt two sizes too big and my poor feet were starting to ache despite the padding of my new kicks. That bridge is infinitely longer when you cross it on foot, but once I did I knew I had “only” 10 miles to go. I would finish, I would phone it in if I had to, but anything short of a fractured femur wouldn’t keep me from getting that coveted gold medal I’d been training for and dreaming about for the last two years.
I kept on.
First Avenue was pretty amazing. Huge crowds of people lined up on both sides of the street from the 59th street bridge all the way up to the Bronx. The pain was real now, a swelling, throbbing ache that was pulsing in my feet, then my knees, then back to my feet. I stopped about halfway up the city for water and a wet sponge to clean my face off (SUCH a great idea). Most bridges, if you didn’t know, are actually constructed as an arc. I’d never really noticed before, but when you’re running nearly 30 miles you tend to feel even the slightest incline. The bridge into the Bronx was brutal. I hissed and spit expletives at it. I whispered that it wasn’t steep enough, it wasn’t long enough to get me to stop or to walk. I bared my teeth and dared it to do it’s worst, because I’d also do mine.
I saw one of my favorite signs during the entire race before I crossed back to Manhattan:
“The last damn bridge.” Hell yes.
I kept on.
I saw my crew again at 110 and 5th Avenue and I sorely needed their smiling faces and their energy. The gas tank was getting close to empty, but there was no time to pause. I was worried that if I stopped I wouldn’t start again, so I kept moving, and that’s when things got really interesting.
I was 22 miles deep at that point and as I turned into Central Park for the last few miles I felt things starting to shut down. My pace had slowed somewhat but as long as I kept putting one foot in front of the other I didn’t really care. The course was tight here, maybe 8 people across and mega crowded on both sides. Again, that energy and support buoyed me up and helped me to keep moving, for a time. Eventually, with a little over 3 miles to go I stopped noticing the crowds and the signs and the smiles.
Everything hurt.
And I mean everything. In high school I used to get cramps and stitches a lot and have to run through them, but since I’d picked up running again they were rare. With 2 miles to go I had a horrific stitch and the beginnings of two cramps as my body started to run out of water to use and glycogen to burn.
Keep pushing, keep pushing, dig. Whatever it takes.
I receded into what distance runners refer to as the cave of pain, where most of the world fades out, you see the course in front of you, your feet keep moving, your body keeps hurting, and the only thing that matters is that you don’t quit. My body ached, the stitch a white-hot pain with each footfall.
I kept on.
I turned a corner, grimacing in pain, nearly gasping rather than breathing and something magical happened. I saw the finish.
The grandstand seats rose up on either side of the last hundred yards or so, the archway over the end of the course with the timer ticking away. People in the crowd clapped and yelled, and despite the pain, I pushed up my sunglasses and smiled. It was more beautiful than I had imagined on every interval, every tempo, every low and slow run, I’d had for the last two years.
I took my time, drinking in all the sounds, smells, sights, everything, as I motored the last bit to the end, and crossed the finish line. I walked a few steps and gave out the loudest battle yell I’ve probably ever done in my life. Then I crouched off to one side and closed my eyes. Breathe.
A woman in a medical vest approached and asked if I needed medical. I didn’t, but I did need to stop moving if just for a minute. I stood and joined the throngs moving forward, smiles of relief, grimaces of pain couched in happiness, people from all over the world walking forward to get their medal. Each of us having gone through our own journey, our own personal crucible of asphalt, sweat, blisters, and a stubborn refusal to quit. Each of us now with a shared bond, an experience like few others. I savored that moment I got my medal for finishing, finally earning the title on the back of my race day shirt.
Marathoner.
