SJ Berwin
Daniel Tunkel's New York Marathon Challenge
Fundraising for Rwanda Restored
Story
Update New York Monday 2 November 2009 - It's been quite a weekend. On Saturday 31st this city goes mad for Halloween. As my wife and set out for a nice Italian place to allow me to consume the customary pre-race pasta, we ran into all sorts of locals in weird outfits headed off to parties, passing others in noisy sports bars cheering raucously to latest match in the Baseball World Series.
I was up and out, ready for the race, by 5.30 a.m. on Sunday, while the last of the partying yahoos from the night before, much the worse for wear, were still slinking off home. Most of the racers are bussed from outside the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue to the huge campsite on Staten Island, from where the race begins. And at which there is quite a bit of waiting around to be done while 42,000 racers are marshaled into starting corrals for a complicated phased start. The elite athletes are set on their way first, so that they don't have to trip over the likes of me. And there are the wheelchair racers, the minor celebrities and a number of other special cases who get a priority start. And then finally the amateur field is set off on its way.
Early morning drizzle gave way to a day of milky sunshine and a light breeze. Pretty much ideal conditions for the race. The road surfaces, however, were another matter. Shame the same was not true of the road surfaces, which are extensively potholed. The Brooklyn stretch (miles 3-13) were pretty well populated with spectators and a variety of more or less noisy musical acts to entertain the runners. We even had a bagpipe band at Prospect Park. Miles 10 and 11 pass through the strictly orthodox Jewish area of South Williamsburg, where, unlike the rest of the course, the locals do not interact with the runners at all. I managed to get a rise out of a few of them with a couple of well-chosen greetings in Yiddish, so I did better than most.
Half-way is the crossing point (it's technically a bridge, though you'd hardly know it) between Brooklyn and Queens, and 15 miles sees the runners tackle the far more daunting Queensboro Bridge, over a mile long, all uphill, in the gloom of the car deck. I was slowing slightly from my optimum time at this point, and so I really gave this mile my best shot, passing a load of "runners" who decided to walk this bit. At Mile 16 the runners emerge into Manhattan, to be greeted by a wall of sound from an official cheering station on the corner of East 59th Street and First Avenue. If you've made it this far, the theory goes that you will indeed finish. But I found the four miles up First Avenue particularly tough this time around. I missed the sponging station at Mile 17, though had to carefully negotiate the trip hazard of about two miles of discarded sponges thereafter. I grabbed what I could from the Power-Gel station at Mile 18; it's awful stuff, this intense glucose-laden goo, but you need something like this to given you a bit of second wind.
I was quite clearly slowing. Having so far managed the first fifteen miles in three hours on the dot, by the time I reached the 20-mile marker in the Bronx I was at four hours and about 9 minutes on my watch.
The last bridge is a nothing-much that takes you back onto the upper reaches of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue (i.e. not the bit you go to for the fancy shopping). The crowds here were thin, and I put that down to post-Halloween hangovers (big mistake to run this race on 1 November ...). By 22 miles, hope of bettering my previous best had realistically gone, which was a shame, but I was still running, as I had been throughout, and I decided to give it my best finish. As the top corner of Central Park emerged at 110th Street, in now bright sunshine, I kicked a bit harder. At 90th, I sailed past my watching wife (she had had her mid-race hug at a previous pre-arranged position on 1st Avenue about 80 minutes before).
At 23 miles we entered Central Park for the last and surprisingly disorienting section of the run, where street scenes, buildings, road-signs etc. give way to winding tree-lined roads with barely a sight of the building line. I was finishing as strongly as I could. I by-passed the drink stops from Mile 23 onwards and dug in. The 24 mile marker past and I was still pushing, 25 miles and we turned onto the roadway of Central Park South. Buildings and street scene again, with the sheer and elegant towers of the Trump Plaza at Columbus Circle coming into view. But Central Park South is uphill and at 25 miles run that hurts like hell. The noise level was intensifying, with more spectators and cheering stations and the distant thump of industrial rock music at the finish line getting closer and closer. They mark a mile to go, then 1km, then 800 yards etc. The 26-mile marker, as you turn north from Columbus Circle to tackle a tiny bit of Central Park West is at one and the same time the most welcoming and the most hated sign you see. Those last 385 yards really hurt. Time for one last haul to the line, which I was trying my best to cross in under 5 1/2 hours. Which I just missed. My unofficial time turned out to be 5:31:24. I suppose that all my times are in the same general area and that's what my frame is prepared to do. I think what annoys me is that a stack of people will have finished ahead of me by alternating running charges with faster or slower walking, when I genuinely ran the whole way.
But we've put Rwanda Restored on the Marathon Map, and I am proud to have done this. Tough race, hard day out, but I did what I came to do. So all of you who were only going to put money on this page on proof I actually did this thing, check out runner 60923 at http://www.nycmarathon.org/Results.htm for all the evidence you need, and please let's get this total up to the 5-mark at least.