I ran the New York City marathon Sunday and I had a great time. I don’t mean my clock time because, who cares, but my time time, my experience time, my whole time, from my 5:30 am get-to-the-bus-on-time time to my 8:00 pm get-your ass-back-home time.
I wasn’t expecting to have such great times at Sunday’s marathon, honestly, because for the last few weeks I’ve been working overtime to prepare myself for the bad times I could have had instead. I’ve gone over scenarios where I didn’t try hard enough to hit a goal time (the clock one) or tried too hard and passed out and fell over and rolled backwards down the Queensboro bridge. I’ve thought about how I’d respond to injuries or disappointments or stomach cramps or thoughts about how much I hate this and don’t want to keep going. And forgot, somehow, that I don’t hate this at all, actually, and want so badly to keep going.
My memory resurfaced around 5:25 am Sunday, thankfully, whilst rushing out of my apartment to make it to that 5:30 am bus ride that would start my slew of great times. The bus driver was late, concerningly, but my running friends were early and I was all oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!can you believe we’re running a marathon today??????, suddenly.
We don’t talk enough about the ride that gets you to a marathon or the waiting that goes on before you take off, in my opinion, but we should because one, road trip!, and two, that’s the time we get to spend with the people who inspire us the most, probably, or at least the ones who’ve trained with us or encouraged us to train or been encouraged by us throughout the training season. This year, the waiting time offered me a space to question why I chose to run the New York City marathon — because it was a choice — and to answer that with: 50% those people and 50% this body, meaning my own.
I love the friends I’ve made through running and I love the feeling running gives me in my bones. Those people and this body are responsible for carrying me through marathon training and race day, rest days and recovery periods too. Thinking about that — how happy I feel around them; how joyful I feel when I move — is a reality check that potential bad times can’t be that bad, really, because my worst case scenarios are still so good. Like, who cares if I roll down the Queensboro bridge? That actually sounds kind of fun. So, for slower or faster, I started Sunday’s marathon knowing I was going to have a great time — the type of time that mattered most — and then I did.
And for what it’s worth, my irrelevant time was pretty good, too. I’m proud of how I paced myself up the hills of New York City, powered through neighborhoods (cough, the Bronx) where I previously crumbled, sped passed doctor’s offices and infusion centers that I’ve literally and figuratively left behind.
I completed the New York City marathon Sunday afternoon but circled back to the finish line Sunday evening — after a few hours of lounging on my brother and sister-in-law’s couch while they bought me bagels (thank you) — to watch more runners cross it. That’s where I met a woman named Alice who was waiting for her friend Yewande who was running about a 17-minute mile pace and who, according to a glitch in the marathon tracking app, had stalled indefinitely at mile 19. Glitches in the app happen sometimes, a volunteer informed us, especially if your phone battery is dangling at an unsettling 14% — side eye to me — but Yewande would get here eventually, or, at least, maybe, he said.
Yet, having flown into NYC from London, Alice needed Yewande to make it through with a higher probability than “maybe” and Yewande needed to finish the marathon for about the same reason. Being that they didn’t have a bus load of training partners to support them — they simply had each other. And well, for what it’s worth, I interrupted, they had me. Then she hugged me.
I spent the rest of my marathon time predicting Yewande’s arrival via estimated-mile-pace-multiplication equations as Alice peered through the darkness in search of a “light blue visor” and we both applauded the other finishers powering their way up the road. She should be here soon, I math-ed incorrectly three or four times until finally, beautifully, there she was.
Two days out, the image of Yewande’s smile lighting up the darkened Central Park finish line still glows in my mind, and the sound of her friend singing her name still echoes in my ears.
It was joy, I think. The image and the sound, the friendship and the feeling, that 50/50 combo that maybe fueled this woman’s New York City marathon, too. Alice and Yewande squealed, they hugged, they posed for a picture (I snapped), and then Yewande went off to finish the damn thing and I went off in search of the subway because it was, you know, time to get my ass back home.
I left the day feeling about as joyful as I started but also crying a little (lot) because some asshole (security guard) trapped me behind a barricade and made me go the long way out of the park. In this essay I will — I’m just kidding! I’ve said enough, but for the hell of it I’ll outline the point of this post one more time which is that an athletic feat like a marathon can be a challenging thing but challenging things can be beautiful things, and joyous things and invigorating things and community-building things and if you ran out there this weekend I hope you had a great time, and you know which kind I’m talking about.
Wellllllll that was longer than I intended! And a later send — sorry! Meant to get this out yesterday but was a little tired from, actually never mind. Not much else to say other than thanks for being here, as always, and I suppose don’t forget to vote if you haven’t already! xoxo
And before you go here’s a sketch I drew of a marathon runner dressed up in a dinosaur suit, which I thought was kind of cute.
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