What I Learned from Destroying Myself at the New York Marathon

The author is on the move.
Photo: Marathon Photo

Before Sunday, I had never run 26.2 miles in my life. Like many people training for their first marathon, I spent months preparing for the race itself and weeks creating the perfect playlist for it. It was a painstaking, almost scientific process. For the first few miles I stood in line for some cool live performances from the War on Drugs. Immediately about Brooklyn: Big Thief. The grueling climbs of the Queensboro Bridge: going metal with the energetic Iron Maiden, Screaming Females and Sword. I timed my mix to end Detroit Cobras “Feel Good”a song that makes me smile and jump every time I hear it—even, I guess, after four hours of running. This would be a great playlist if I ever get the chance to hear it.

There is a box set up a few feet from the marathon starting line where runners can donate clothes they’ve been wearing to stay warm while they wait for the race to begin. I was wearing an old, threadbare hoodie that I had brought specifically for this purpose. As we all approached the line and the runners began jumping up and down in nervous anticipation, I took off my sweatshirt and tossed it into the box. Then I took out my phone, loaded Spotify and realized… I just threw away my headphones with my hoodie. The perfect playlist was in vain, and I was about to embark on the hardest physical test of my life in complete silence – a man alone with his thoughts, hearing only the footsteps of his feet and the ever-increasing sighs and sighs. your own breath.

And that turned out to be the best part of the whole experience. New York Marathon it’s not something that can be filtered through apps and put into algorithmic personalization. The best way to experience this is with open ears, open eyes and, yes, I will say it: with an open heart. To be among the people of New York for four hours is to be in their hands, and I would miss a lot if I was enveloped in indie rock and death metal all the time. Running a marathon means being transformed, learning something about yourself and the world around you that you couldn’t know in advance. And do it the day before elections that we all rightfully spent weeks, months, years biting your nails while waiting was helpful in all the right ways (and some wrong ones).

This is unlike anything I have experienced before or expect to experience again. Here’s what you’ll learn about yourself and the world by running the New York City Marathon.

Total out of 55,646 people finished the New York Marathon this year, highest number in race history and is approximately three times the capacity of Madison Square Garden. Organizers need to gather all these runners to the start of the race in Staten Island, a place that most participants do not visit. They clear the 46.2 mile path and make sure no runners die along the way. AND they must ensure that the city itself continues to hum while over a million people line the streets to shout, drink and party all day. I’ve covered Super Bowls, the World Series and the Olympics, and I’ve never seen anything as chaotic as the New York City Marathon. The city handled this task like it was the easiest thing in the world, and did it with the good spirit that defines the race itself. Have you ever seen a police officer dancing to Beyoncé in the middle of a bridge while high-fiving strangers? Now I have it! New York can do it again next year and every year. This is incredible. And, apparently, the city doesn’t even need a mayor for this.

I lived in New York for 14 years. On marathon days, I used to get out of bed with cigarettes and a screwdriver filled with vodka and ramble cheering on people I didn’t know who were running faster. I did it mostly for myself, to feel useful, to feel like I was part of something I would never have thought of being a part of. Now that I’m a runner (and a much healthier one) and on the other side of that rope, I kind of want to hug the old man for his support. When you come out to encourage people, it really makes a difference to them. I think this could save me in this race.

Cheered on by cheering crowds, I prepared for the first 18 miles of the race, actually running at a faster pace than my usual training runs. It seemed to me that I was floating above the ground, as if the crowd was carrying me through the air. Turns out that wasn’t the case—my legs were doing it, and my legs were mad at me for it: Around the 19-mile mark, out of nowhere, I suddenly started having severe leg cramps. It seemed to me that with every step I took, my foot bumped into an iron pole two feet high sticking out of the ground. I instantly pulled over to the side of the road, sat down, and began furiously massaging my calves and thighs, just trying to get them working again. (See if you can spot where on the graph this happened.)

Graphic: Marathon Photography

I stood up again, leaned over the railing and tried to stretch my screaming calves, afraid that I had come all this way and done all this work only to fall short on the last stretch. Then I noticed a group of young people looking into my eyes. I was in more pain than I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m sure I looked like it. But they didn’t look at me with pity or concern – they just shouted almost in unison: “You got it, dude!” And guess what? It really helped. Their enthusiasm did not relax my cramped muscles, but it encouraged me to keep going, to reward their unalloyed, completely sincere excitement – to make their efforts as worthwhile as mine. Much has been written about the joyful celebration of love that is the New York City Marathon, but I’m not sure it can be emphasized enough. People can be mean, cruel and inconsiderate; we all see this every day. But it was something fundamental and elemental: people support other people simply because they are different people. I could barely walk the last two miles of the race. But after that, I couldn’t help but finish that bastard off. And I did it.

So come out and cheer everyone on every year. You’ll probably be drunk by 11am. It’s OK. You’re still helping. You are still doing more than you can imagine.

When I found out that the marathon would take place two days before the 2024 elections, I thought of two things:

1) It would be helpful to engage in physical activity through which you can channel your political anxieties.

2) There will be election reminders everywhere along the route.

In the first I was completely right, but in the second I was only slightly right. I’ve seen my fair share of Harris Walz camouflage caps (apparently all arrived last week) – and plenty of “Run Like You’re Running to the Poll” signs. But overall, the crowd seemed to see the race as more of a respite from the election than I did. The only real political moment was created by myself. Approaching Williamsburg, I was running on the left side of the street and saw an older man wearing a Make America Great Again hat, the only one I noticed the entire race. I instinctively looked into his eyes and saw him lean forward slightly as I approached, as if he was relieved after scowling all day at the sight of a white man in his forties walking towards him. I smiled and shouted a cartoonish “Boo!” on him; everyone around laughed, and he smiled too. It was an enjoyable and fun moment for everyone involved, and I’m still not entirely sure why.

After a long zombie shuffle through Central Park West with my haunted finishers, all covered in blankets as if we’d just survived several car crashes, I returned to my hotel to meet up with my family and stuff my face with carbs and alcohol. . There were several other marathon runners in the lobby, and we were drawn to each other like magnets. This happened all night and the following days: every time you saw someone with a medal (and we all wore our medals all the time), you pointed at them and they pointed at you, and the two of you just knew. One of the many great things about the New York City Marathon is one of the many great things about New York itself: people come from all over the world to take part, and everyone ends up mingling with everyone else. Late that evening, as I trudged back to the hotel after my nightcap, I saw two men with medals having dinner with their families and friends outside a Greek restaurant. One spoke French; the other, wearing a Pakistani team jacket that I had seen several times during the race, spoke in Urdu. They both saw me and my medal, stopped talking and waved their hands. I waved back as if I was meeting a long lost friend. Which I think I did.

As much as I’d like to say that my election nerves got the better of me, that’s simply not true. I thought about Tuesday night before, during and after the race – how could I not? I’ve had a theory for a long time that there are so many disgusting things around Donald Trump that you can actually tell a little about a person by what bothers them majority about him. Is this racism? Misogyny? Fire hose of lies? Strong trends? General rudeness? When I discover what upsets someone more than anything else, I feel like I know them on a slightly deeper level.

For a long time, what bothered me most was Trump’s ruthlessness, his complete lack of shame—and the sense that he used these qualities as nefarious superpowers so he could get away with anything. But in recent years, something else has risen to the top of my list: the way he has isolated himself, and therefore much of the nation, from the idea of ​​a collective experience, some universal truth that we can all be a part of. together. Sort of like the New York City Marathon, where strangers go out to encourage other strangers, where people with vastly different backgrounds and views can come together and instantly feel like they are part of a larger whole, that they can lift each other up and accomplish something greater. common goal together. This is the opposite of Trumpism. What makes this possible is openness to the world, curiosity, a willingness to improve yourself and the lives of the people around you – to try to make the world and the people in it a little better.

This is the spirit of the New York City Marathon. I think this is the very spirit of life. And ever since Trump came down the escalator, I’ve been afraid that we were at risk of losing. On Sunday, two days before the biggest election of our lives, the spirit felt very alive, even reborn, as if it was impossible to imagine a world in which something so pure and uplifting and joyful could coexist with something so cold. empty and joyful. as ruthless as the Trump presidency. It made me feel better. It made me feel like we would be fine.

Of course, I didn’t participate in the 2016 race, which also took place two days before Election Day, which was fraught with many of the same anxieties as this one. I bet the runners in this race felt the same hope for community that I did at the finish line on Sunday – and yet here we are, again, on the edge. But I can take comfort in knowing that, regardless of this or any other election, the marathon will return next year and every year thereafter, lifting everyone up, no matter who they are, no matter where they come from, no matter what it is. they may be needed. My only advice to future runners: get rid of your headphones.