Mugging the ING

The results don’t always tell the tale.

he Boston Marathon dates [beet to 1897, and most

runners strive to qualify to tun it at least once. But the ING New York City Marathon is the premier event in marathoning .. . running through the five boroughs … millions of spectators . . . the crowds, bands. The ING New York City Marathon has become perhaps the most prestigious of all the world’s marathons.

Iran the race twice in the ’80s, but having turned 60 recently, and thus entering a new age group, I thought I would give this challenging course another shot. The training had gone OK, though I did have a few minor setbacks. I had contracted Lyme disease in late August 2008, the downside of being married to an avid gardener. (Surely not the result of thousands of miles on the Shawangunk trails.) I had felt miserable for weeks with absolutely no energy,

A The author cruising in the 2008 ING New York City Marathon.

and in fact I had a 104 degree temperature when I first called Dr. Heller. He put me on doxycycline for 30 days, but on far too many runs I found myself slogging

along at a 10-minute pace.

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Other that that, I had trained fairly well. I had run Boston in April, where I finished fourth in my age group with a 3:09:58, and I felt I had a shot to be competitive in New York. After taking a few weeks off after Boston, I gradually started building up my mileage in June, using July 14 as the start of my 16-week training program.

Despite a lower-back problem and the Lyme disease, I did manage to get in my quota of long runs, and twice a week I threw in faster-paced workouts. After six to eight weeks, I usually ease up on the speed, tending to emphasize more tempo and marathon-pace runs.

Everything seemed to have fallen into place, and I was eager to head to the Big Apple.

Mike Barnow, the Shawangunk coach, had managed to secure a few in our group a “local competitive start.” So after the gun, I was on the mat in less than 30 seconds. My first mile was exactly eight minutes, but I managed to pick up the pace from there and hit 5K in 22:34.

I’ll spare you the agony of going over all the splits, a luxury not afforded my running buddies. My finish time worked out to a 7:10 pace, not too shabby for an old guy of 60.

I reached the halfway at just under a seven-minute-mile pace and felt great. But something happened between mile 13 and 16. My quads started to burn. I had apparently forgotten about the uphills on the bridges. But by mile 16, my first really bad mile, I knew I was in trouble. I still thought I had a shot for a 3:05 or a 3:06, but the miles were slowing, my quads were screaming, and then there was mile 22, an ugly 8:09.

I gave everything I had. You never really know where you are in relation to others in your age group. But you do know that if you might be in contention, you just can’t let up for fear of losing your place in history by a mere six or eight seconds. I gave it my all in those final miles. Every time I saw some old geezer ahead, I gave it one more push. I made the final right turn and saw the clock in the distance, passed a few more potential contenders, and in fact remember noting that there didn’t seem to be anyone left who was within my grasp: 3:08:09. Whew!

Now share with me my total despair as I consulted the results and saw the time of the second-place finisher in my age group: Alan Miller, 60M, Florida. 3:08:03!

That’s right. Six seconds! Had he passed me during that ugly mile 22? Had I lost my focus? I wanted to scream. And now I wondered how far I had been from winning the age group outright. Ten seconds? Twelve seconds?

No, not quite. There was a guy named Ermes Luppi. An Italian runner, he ran a near world record 2:39:53. Holy cow!

Incredible! An age-graded 96.8 percent!