Memories of a benign bandit.

note that I did not say that I ran the New York City Marathon; the latter claim would be a fib. I ran enough of it, however, to gain an impression of how the ancient Greek messenger must have felt.

In 1989, I was 25 years old, a graduate student at Columbia University, a resident of Manhattan’s Morningside Heights, and a habitual runner who set out two or three times per week for runs of five or six miles through either Central Park or Riverside Park. A friend and classmate, Dan, also was a runner and called on me the morning of the race to suggest that we go to watch and perhaps, just as

“Tree years ago this year, I ran in the New York City Marathon. Please

a lark, jump in for a few miles. Dan had completed several marathons, whereas my own competitive running career included merely one year of junior-high track and the occasional 10K holiday fun run. Nevertheless, because the plan was to tun only a short distance and then grab lunch, I figured that my lack of training and experience hardly mattered.

I threw on khaki hiking shorts, a collared tennis shirt, a sweatshirt, and my running shoes and met Dan at the subway. On a map on the wall of our subway car, Dan pointed to our destination, which was the stop in Brooklyn closest to the Verrazano Bridge. By the time we arrived, the race was well under way, and we didn’t wait long before jumping in. I soon fell behind my 6-foot-2-inch friend, whose reddish head remained visible above others until at last, with a backward glance both solicitous and regretful, he disappeared for good into the nylon-clad herd. Being young and careless, we of course had not made any plans about how to reconnect if we got separated (these were the days before cell phones). Further, it occurred to me after I started running that I knew nothing at all about either the geography of Brooklyn or the marathon route. My strategy was merely to follow the other runners until, after a few miles, I became tired, and then to ask for directions to the nearest subway stop. I had a pleasant feeling that on this day my fellow New Yorkers, either from pity or admiration or both, would take care

of me and the other members of its special class of annually mentally ill—its marathon runners.

Making a kid happy

For what seemed like a long, long time, I was on a straight, wide boulevard. I was being cheered by Hasidic Jews. Bands were playing. Mile after mile after mile, people clapped and shouted encouragement. From tables along the route I grabbed plastic cups of water, which I mostly drank but occasionally dumped on my head, as I had seen marathoners do on TV. A surprising number of spectators proffered fruit to the runners, and after I accepted an orange section from a boy of about 10, he turned to his family and shouted, “Yes!” (Thank you, whoever you are.) At a point unknown to me, I passed from Brooklyn into Queens. Race volunteers called out mile numbers, each mile seeming longer than the previous one. Af the end of the day, I’ ll tell people about that 12th mile, | said to myself. That number became the 13th, then the 14th. I regretted my wallet and keys bouncing heavily in my pockets and my cotton shorts and sweatshirt heavy with sweat. Nevertheless, utterly captivated by the drama of the event, I found myself unable to quit. As I came to the most spectacular point of the route—the crossing of Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan at mile 16—I realized that I was actually going to try to finish the race. I was going to try to run (most of) a marathon that day.

Of my memories of the marathon, one that remains especially sharp came soon after I crossed the bridge and began running north along First Avenue. By that point, we runners were well spread along the route, but to my immediate left, at a distance of 15 feet or so, there was a woman who, for perhaps a quarter of an hour, ran at exactly my pace. About 30 years old, she had muscular legs and wore tight-fitting bicycle shorts rather than the shorter, looser running shorts preferred by most of the competitors. She was noteworthy for having lost control of her bowel, which was visible as a long, brown stain on her leg and, even outdoors, emitted a strong, unmistakable odor. A marathon may appear colorful on television, but up close it can be brutal.

Having crossed into Manhattan, I began to hope that the race was nearing its end, that all I had to do now was to run up to Central Park. Deep down I knew that that distance couldn’t be right, but my body was rebelling and my mind was starting to plead, bargain, and cajole. I pressed on, following the route into the Bronx, where I stopped running and walked from mile 20 to mile 21. During that one-mile walk, it seemed as though everyone was passing me, and I became obsessed with the notion that I was going to finish last—that when I finally showed up at or near the finish line, the people working there, having been kept informed by radio of my presence on the route and being required to stay until all runners had either finished or given up, would be speaking wearily into their

walkie-talkies and looking impatiently at their watches upon my approach. Thus at mile 21 I resumed running, reminding myself that I had run a distance of five miles many times before and that clearly I was capable of doing so again. That these last five miles of running had been preceded immediately by 20 others was a technicality that I needed to overlook.

Not knowing anything about marathons, I would have thought beforehand that, as one who hadn’t trained for a race of that length, I would be undone by insufficient cardiac strength. It was not my heart, however, young and strong at 25, that threatened to give out, but my bones. At the 21-mile mark, my hips, knees, and ankles and the bones of my feet all felt as though they were being squeezed by pliers. As my running shoes pounded the pavement, a mantra started running through my head: “Punish your bones. That’s it, John, just punish your bones.” I repeated it endlessly as I covered the last five asphalt miles through Manhattan and Central Park, all the way drawing strength from the cheering spectators.

A run-in with an enforcer

In the park, I followed the curved and hilly route south and then west and then, just as the route turned north, I encountered one of the men of whom I had been foretold, a man whose job was to cull unofficial runners from the course just shy of the finish line. I had been told that that job belonged to men who either played professional football or had been released from the teams’ tryout camps; these men were, in effect, bouncers who could run. How many runners they must bounce, I don’t know, but my own bouncer studied my sweatshirt, and I thought that I saw his eyes widen briefly in surprise as he saw that I had no number. He looked about my age or slightly older, had longish, curly-black hair and piercing, pale-blue eyes, and was dressed much like the runners themselves. He appeared fit and strong but did not have the classic build of a football player. With an attitude that was serious but not hostile, he approached me and motioned for me to exit the road to the left. Seeing that I intended no mischief (even had I been inclined to play a game of tag at that time, I could not have outrun a slug), he called out to another approaching bouncer, “He’s OK,” looking at me as he said it to ensure that he and I had an understanding. Thus I found myself off the road and in the trees. My watch said that I had been on the course for 3 hours, 25 minutes.

I walked a short distance to Central Park West and, uncharacteristically, hailed acab. For reasons I’ve never understood, upon arriving home a few minutes later I was exhausted but, rather than collapsing immediately into bed, I stepped into a cool shower. Suddenly thirsty, I drank directly from the nozzle (for the first and only time of my life) and had an odd sensation: it seemed as though I could feel the water coursing through my body, through my stomach, arms, hands, and legs.

| get no sympathy

I then flopped onto the bed and called a friend, who advised me to take ibuprofen, a drug I never had heard of. Dan called to make sure that I had made it home (he had also run nearly to the end). A couple of hours later, en route to a diner, I made my way with the slow, painstaking gait of a centenarian. That time warp would last for three days. Walking along Broadway the next day with a friend, I kept falling 10 feet back, but rather than eliciting her sympathy, my self-inflicted state of temporary decrepitude seemed to amuse her. My kid sister sent me a note querying, “Are you nuts?” and enclosed a small package of the same. I can’t remember how many weeks passed before I went running again.

How far had I run that day? In 1989, there was no Internet to tell me. These many years later, however, I can log on and, seeing the marathon route for the first time, easily determine that the subway stop was Bay Ridge, which appears to be about a mile from the starting line. I also can see how close I came to the finish line, which is situated almost immediately past the point in Central Park where the route turns north. It appears as though I ran about 25 miles.

Of my years in New York in my mid-20s, I have many lasting impressions, some of them uniquely those of a student of the arts, others that would be shared more generally among all people fortunate enough to have lived in Gotham. I ran in the marathon just that one time, but for having taken me to places in the city I never otherwise would have seen, for the cheers I received from so many kind strangers, and for the knowledge that I once was young and strong enough to run it, the marathon remains one of my fondest memories of my years in the city. OE