New York Marathon. November 4th 2007
‘Another round, dude?’ My good friend Barry asks.
I look at Caroline and she shrugs, ‘We’re on holiday, right?’
‘Yeah, vodka tonic dude.’ I blare at him above the banging hip hop.
We are standing in the crowded trendy bar of the Hudson Hotel in midtown New York. We’ve just flown 9 hours to get here and the beers preceding the vodka tonic have gone down way too nicely.
The floor is lit from below and the coloured glass tiles are already a bit blurred.
‘You’re running the Marathon on Sunday, right?’ Barry’s fiancée, Liz, asks.
‘Yeah.’
She points at my empty glass and shrugs. ‘And your drinking?’
‘It’s only Friday and we’re on holiday.’ I say defensively.
The truth is, I’m worried about running the marathon. I’m told it’s not the same as shuffling out an Ironman and the pain is much worse. The vodkas arrive just in time.
Saturday 3rd November
We’re awake at crazy o’clock as is the way with flying to the states. Our hotel room, lined on all surfaces with dark stained wood panelling is marginally bigger than the nearly double bed we’ve somehow squeezed into. It’s supposed to be trendy but the coffin theme they’ve gone with in this room is closing in on me. The claustrophobia is intensifying as I lie there in nervous anticipation still a day away from my first proper marathon. It’s not that I’m worried about finishing, I know that I’ll finish. I want to race it as fast as I can. I know I won’t be able to hold back and pace it properly like all the wiry marathon gurus say you should. Hold back? What the hell do I want to do that for? I want to run as fast as I can, blow then hold on to the line or get scraped from the pavement by some dude in fancy dress telling me ‘You can make it buddy’. Great plan Vince, little did I know how much pain that whacky idea would lead to.
The Olympic marathon trials were being held in central park so we grabbed a couple of coffees and muffins and trucked over to catch the last 30mins of action. We were not 10 seconds at the guard rail when the marathon motorcade of lead car, resplendent with giant digital clock, and the NYPD donut dudes on fat harleys rolled by. Seconds later, there was Ryan Hall. America’s 24year old Olympic marathon hopeful. This guy is such an awesome runner. You just can’t appreciate the speed and grace of this guy until you see it live. He claimed the U.S half marathon record earlier in the year in 59:43 and then clocked 2:08;24 in his marathon debut in London, less than a minute behind the winner, Martin Lel. He had a pretty significant lead and claimed his Olympic spot convincingly from a stellar field. Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtlrq9o6G5I for some awesome footage of this race. Should have you reaching for your runners before you’ve got to the end of the clip.
I had to get to the expo across town to register so we walked through the streets taking in all the classic sights of NYC. Both Caroline and I had been to the city a couple of times before but never together, in fact the last time we were supposed to go, was the day some crazies decided to fly a couple of planes into the twin towers. We were on our way from Toronto to New York and only made it so far as the end of the runway at 8:30am that terrible morning.
We mooched about seeing runners everywhere. It was bloody freezing and yet people were jogging all over the place. There was a real athletic buzz in the air and everybody seemed to have marathon fever.
The expo was massive. The convention centre was totally packed with wannabe marathoners. There were so many retailers tempting you with all kinds of athletic stuff, you really didn’t need but felt pressured to buy. I managed to resist buying the NY marathon mug, keyring, mousemat, pen, pen holder, pants, socks, bottle opener and pretty much everything else you could slap an ING logo on, but couldn’t leave empty handed. The ‘Bikini Bottom, Spongebob Squarepants’ cap included in the goody bag was awesome of course, but not satisfying my need for sports stuff. We trawled the show haphazardly. I threw out my usual serpentine convention walking strategy as brightly coloured dri-fit and runners pulled me randomly across aisles and through lesser booths, I darted about frantically trying to take in all the kit I might need someday.
‘Don’t let go of my hand sweetheart, I don’t want to lose you.’ I screamed, tugging Caroline through the heaving crowds, like we trying to snag the last lifeboat on a sinking Titantic.
How I left that expo with only a pair of compression tights and a few dri-fit Tees, I’ll never know.
Then, just as we were leaving I saw a lonely looking Tim DeBoom sitting behind a table at the Craft stand clutching a bunch of photo cards and a marker pen hoping for some tri hards to ask for his autograph. I yanked at Caroline’s arm, ‘That’s Tim De-fricken-Boom’ I forced through clenched teeth.
‘Who?’ Caroline casually threw back at me.
‘Only the fricken two time world ironman champ, that’s all. You know that dude from the video that you thought was a bit too keen.’
‘Ok, so go and talk to him, he’s on his no mates.’ Caroline pushed me over toward him before I could think of something clever to say.
‘Er...so...hi... Tim.’ I started, still no ideas. ‘So... Hawaii huh?’
He looked at me quizzically.
‘Really thought you were going to make it to that podium this year.’
There was a bit of uncomfortable silence, he just shrugs and sighs, ‘Yeah, so do you want an autographed picture?’
I shook my head.
‘Nah, I’m sorry, I better not. Someone might find out. Good talking to you though.’
I think he understood and dropped the cards on the table. Mumbling something about good luck on Sunday.’
With registration done, we rocked on back to the hotel to sort reservations for good pasta place that night. I wish I could remember the name of the place, the food was all kinds of awesome and one of the best Italian meals I’ve ever had. I was all carbed up and ready to rock.
Race Day
‘Good Morning Sir, this is your 4am wake up call...’ The electronic voice squawked down the phone line. I slumped back into bed for a moment but then the nerves took hold and I staggered the 8 inches to our bathroom, remembering to remove my knee caps to enable a seated rather than half standing posture. As I prepared to get down to competition weight, with my nose pressed against the tiled wall in front of me, I pondered my race plan. I’d been running just over 3hours in ironman marathons so I didn’t think 2:45 was out of the question. Conan had warned me that the hills add a bit to your time but I’d regular run 1:20 halfers in training quite comfortably so I wanted a tough target to shoot for. I was going to go hard from the off and push through half in about 1:20 and see if I could hang on for the end. I really wanted 2:45, it sounded really fast to me and I’ve never been one to just enjoy the race without at least one unrealistic goal to shoot for.
I had a bus to catch from outside the Library to Staten Island where the race kicks off. The race brief mentioned breakfast and coffee available at the start village, so I grabbed my hobo jacket bought for 15 dollars the day before and headed out the door. I paused on the way out and looked at our miniature bed wondering for just a moment how crap I’d feel if I just sacked off the race and climbed back in, but Caroline waved me off and told me she’d be cheering on the course somewhere near central park. I had some running to do.
Outside, there were loads of athletes everywhere, all heading in different directions. I had hoped to just go out the front door and just follow a bunch of sporty looking folk, but everyone seemed to have different pick up points to me. After walking for half an hour I made it. A huge line of busses manned by ING marathon logo’d volunteers organised the mass evacuation in minutes. It was impressive. After reading horror stories online about the commute to the start taking well over an hour and having no toilets on hand, I was dreading the journey, but by 6am I was wandering around the start village freezing my balls off.
Here’s a couple of tips for you would be NY marathon virgins out there. Bring more disposable clothes than you could possibly imagine you’d need, bring every sweatshirt, tracky bottoms, windbreaker, all in one ski suit, long john thermals etc... and then raid charity shops for anything else. The salty marathon vets were bundled up in old sleeping bags with silver foil sheets, wearing beanies and earmuffs with just small breathing and seeing holes exposed. That stuff about bring a top and trousers you don’t mind disposing of is just not stressed enough. All that separated me from the chilly November air was my hooded hobo jacket, a thin dri fit Tee, shorts and thin trackie bottoms. The first hour I was just about ok, by the second I was getting cold and miserable. Not even watching the lines for the loos trying to guess who was going for ones or twos was lifting my spirit (dancing on the spot usually no. 1, folded arms and shuffling, no. 2). By the third hour I was shaking and close to jacking the whole thing in. After four hours of waiting the sun was starting to warm us up a bit but by then I was pretty miserable, even the jolly jazz band was a source of constant irritation.
Ok, the next tip. Eat before you leave your hotel or at least take a decent breakfast with you. The provided breakfast consists of a piece of special super absorbent dense white foam shaped like a bagel. In order to get it into a form that you can swallow, one mouthful of this military grade super sponge requires every drop of moisture your body can surrender. I could literally feel my tear ducts draining to accommodate the limitless absorbency of this pseudo food product. I eventually managed to get half of it into my body by submersing it into the acrid dunkin donut coffee being served to those desperate enough to drink it. My next concern was to what size the bagel would swell to in my stomach when taking on water at the aid stations on route. I had a frightening preminision of the final scene in Ghostbusters. I would turn into a 200foot tall marshmallow like monster, busting at the seams, crushing cars beneath my feet as I frantically fed moisture to the expanding insatiable bagel inside.
Finally, it was 10am and time to do some running. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and though I was still freezing, it was warming up. We were called into our various starting zones and I was pleased to see I only had a thousand people in front of me. It didn’t look too bad. I didn’t have any real idea if I would need to bust through them or not. I was pretty much the only guy in the holding zone still in jacket and tracksuit bottoms, and wouldn’t be discarding them until the very last minute.
We were led to the start line and the nerves were really firing off now. I was busting for whizz and it didn’t look like there was anywhere to go, then these guys in front of me jumped the fence and all started to pee at the side of the road. The army guys didn’t make anything of it, but one of the jobsworth race volunteers started going mental, flapping his arms about and cajoling the army guys to force people back into the starting pen. When you gotta go, you just gotta go and more and more guys were jumping the fence to pee. I followed a few Italian guys but the army started to get really aggressive. Then the national anthem kicked in and they all stood to attention saluting ‘the flag’. The Italians took the opportunity and all started to pee. I didn’t have the sack to join them, but it was hilarious to see the might of the U.S army suddenly impotent when the anthem was played.
At last the cannon fires and I’ve just whipped off my jacket and bottoms. It takes a little while before I’m jogging and over the start line but then it thins out fairly quickly as we head up the Verranzano bridge. The climb going over the top seems to take ages and it’s not long that I realize these bridges are going to be a lot more difficult than I thought. 2:45 may have been a little ambitious. I try to get into a comfortable pace but I’m still busting so I consolidate and wait for an opportunity. Down the other side of the bridge I spot a tree at the side of the road and the relief is like nothing on earth. It felt like I was standing there for days, but I was going off like a busted fire hydrant and the marathon would have to wait.
The first 5km is pretty uneventful, but before too long, crowds are lining the streets and the energy is totally mind blowing. I’ve watched the London marathon on numerous occasions at different points along the route and it just does not come close to the reaction of the crowds in New York. They are all going crazy, beating drums blowing whistles and blasting out tunes from the back of cars or open apartment windows. I feel like I’m gliding along, I’m paying no attention to my pace, just sucking up the atmosphere and loving it. By the 10km mark I see a crowd of runners gathered around a weird vehicle with a load of cameras on it. At the time I didn’t realize it was Lance Armstrong, he’d started ahead of me but was clearly going for the negative split run rather my smash 20k and hope for the best tactic.
I glanced at my watch and saw I’d gone through 10k in just under 37 mins. It was a bit too quick but I felt ok, so I thought I’d just see how things went. Of course those who’ve run marathons before are now shaking their heads thinking ‘silly boy.’ And they’d be right.
It was all going peachy, I was grabbing Gatorade at the aid stations and loving all the live music at the side of the road. Just before halfway, I thought I would back off the pace a bit but then there was this huge brass band playing the Rocky theme tune. Who’s not a sucker for Rocky? Oh come on, what could I do? I notched up the pace again. I had the eye of the tiger, I had hundreds of kids running behind me, screaming my name, Ro-cky, Ro-cky, Ro-cky. I was gonna be heavyweight champion of the world......and then my legs started to twinge a bit, then a bit more, then my face started to feel really hot. My eye of the tiger was twitching and maybe I needed to sit down for bit....uh oh.
The band faded into the background, seeds of doubt sprouted and took hold. I went through half in around 1:18 and still felt ok, but I had no idea how many k’s I still had in my legs. Then came another proper bridge. The Queensborough bridge went on for days, it was one of those huge double decker efforts and it was really dark and cold. It’s weird running these gradual slopes in the dark , the transition from going up to going down is really subtle and suddenly you find your stride is opening up and your flying downhill. At 16miles in, the down hills were starting to really hurt. My quads burned and I was sure my ITBs were actually on fire.
(pic of the leading pack on 1st Av.)
Spectators were not allowed on the bridges so motivation was waning badly. Then we burst out into daylight and onto Manhattan tarmac. The roar of the crowd was incredible. Absolutely deafening. 1st Avenue is around 6 lanes wide and there are literally thousands of spectators lining the fences, hanging out of windows, waving flags and foam hands, and pretty much going nuts. I was in a pack of around 8 runners and we had the whole road to ourselves. I was totally rushing and again subconsciously ramped up my pace ignoring the pain in my legs. I then heard Caroline and Barry scream my name above the cacophony; I looked back and just caught their faces in the crowds. I felt brilliant.
Well for another mile or so I felt brilliant, and then I started to feel rubbish again. Sort of dizzy and heavy. I saw the 18mile mark and laughed, that old adage of racing not starting till the last 8 miles rang through my mind. I grimaced, refusing to accept the ‘hitting the wall’ crap and forced my way back into the small pack I’d been running with.
The miles clicked by slower but I was tolerating my discomfort level and maintaining a reasonable pace. I’d been ignoring my watch and the splits since the halfway mark and as we 
crossed into the Bronx I saw a clock showing I need to run the last 10k in something like 40 odd minutes to get under 2:45. Well it was all going pretty well and I was planning my ironman style run to the finish line by high fiving complete strangers and making a complete fool of myself when we hit central park. I’m still not sure what happened but those last few hills totally smashed me up. My arms and chest were cramping, my legs were on fire and I had absolutely no energy. I saw the 5km to go marker and seriously thought I wouldn’t make it. With 3km to go I thought I might have to walk across the line as my legs trembled with each step. At some point in this last few km Lance Armstrong re-passed me. It must have happened at his point as I was totally out of it and would not have noticed if he was moonwalking and juggling flaming clubs. I rounded the last corner and saw the finish line. The race commentator gave Lance a heroes welcome and he crossed the line just meters in front of me. I stumbled across the line totally beaten. I subconsciously hit my stopwatch and waited to be caught by some volunteer, handed some deelish drink and taken off to the massage tent.
‘Congratulations, move along.’ The volunteer said in a monotonous voice, already looking over my shoulder for the next marathoner.
‘Er...can I...can I have.......’ I stammered using my last miliwatts of power to ask for a drink.
‘Move along sir. Good job. Move along. Sir, I can’t have you standing here. Move along.’
The five foot, obese, genderless volunteer kept trying to push me further down the line of other useless people with no food or drink.
‘But, I ...I just ran a marathon.’ I pleaded. This is not what I was used to with ironman.
‘Move along sir, you can’t stand here.’ Her nasal whine insisted.
Where was my heroes welcome? I looked back to see Lance in a decent state of exhaustion with several of his entourage bustling around him, handing him drinks and warm clothing. I wobbled on for a few more steps and nearly got a bit emotional. I was totally spent and nobody seemed to give a toss.
‘Stand here for your official photograph Sir.’ Another annoying volunteer was pushing me toward an ING logo splattered backdrop. I struggled free from his grasp and stumbled on down the line. Someone else handed me a bag with some more free crap in it, no spongebob cap this time, an apple and some water, some pain relief meds and a ton of leaflets. I was getting cold but still more volunteers had me walk further and further. Eventually, I stopped by an impossibly fat cop and asked directions to the meeting point I was going to meet Caroline at. Then there she was, like a fricken angel I tell you. My beautiful Caroline, standing there with my bag of warm clothes and deee-lish choco milkshake. I collapsed into her arms and cried a bit. I was so totally nailed, my leg bones pretty much fell out and she dragged me over to a park bench to finally receive my heroes welcome.
‘So what time did you do then?’ She asked hugging me warm.
I looked at my watch, sticky with Gatorade. ‘2;45’ I said smiling. Mission accomplished.
Epilogue
So I beat Lance by about a minute. About the same time it took me to get to the start line from the time the cannon went off.
I was 198th overall and learned some seriously valuable lessons that I should have already committed to memory.
Eat properly before the start and bring some damn gels along for that last 10k of hell.
This marathon was so much fun, I totally recommend it to anyone and I’ll definitely be back to give it another shot. But don’t go shopping for two days afterwards, I had to go down all the stairs backwards and walking was a source of constant amusement for everyone but me.
Some splits;
Total time 2:45:28. First half 1:18.31 second half 1:26.57. Er...need to work on pacing.
If you have a sub 3hour marathon time or sub 1:20 half marathon time you don’t have to go through the lottery.