I ran my first marathon, Steamtown in 2004, to see if I could do it once. It was a great experience, but I was happy to wait a decade to do another—the training is so time-consuming! I quickly reverted to my weekly long run being 5 miles and my typical race being a 5K. At 50, in 2015, I ran the Rochester Marathon with my sister-in-law. It was fun but I didn’t take the time to blog about it, and it’s so much less vivid to me now! Somewhere along the line, when I realized that New York wasn’t one you could be sure of getting into, I started entering the lottery almost every year (more consistently now that it’s free), figuring if I got in, it would be totally worth it. Despite the time and effort. Despite the cost (this is by far the most expensive race I’ve ever entered). Why? A bunch of reasons, in the order they come to me:
- The biggest marathon in the world! I can’t really imagine what that’s like. The largest field I’ve been a part of is probably the Hot Chocolate Run, with 6,000 runners and walkers. NYCM is more than 50,000! The size alone is fascinating to me.
- My home town! I was born and grew up in Manhattan and my mother and step-father still live there.
- All five boroughs! Someday I want to do the Five Boro Bike Tour but I haven’t made it yet. I love the idea of seeing the whole city and crossing so many bridges.
- Bedford Avenue! It’s the longest street in Brooklyn. My brother lived in Williamsburg for a long time and founded Nada Surf there; he’s the one who told me how cool it was to watch it go by.
- The race director greets the last finishers! And now the elite racers join him. I’m slow enough that that really means a lot to me. At Steamtown I felt the pressure of “the course closes in 6 hours” (even though I ultimately broke 5 hours). I hated the one time I had the pace car right behind me in the Montrose 4th of July 10K (tiny field, pouring rain) and I now pick races so they’re big enough that I won’t be dead last, but I really sympathize with people who are and know they work as hard as anyone. A slow runner spends as much time on a marathon as an ultra! Races that treats slow finishers with dignity are special.
- The crowd support! A million spectators? Wow. I love the description of the roar on 1st Avenue coming off the Queensboro Bridge. I really fed off the crowd energy for Steamtown, not that the smaller scale in Rochester was a negative—in fact, I enjoyed the peaceful stretches, and it was just a different experience—but I’m excited to feel it on a completely different scale.
- The expo! I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve been to, but again they’ve been tiny compared to the Javits Center. 100+ exhibitors!
- It’s an international destination event! I’ve yet to run a race that had participants much beyond the US. This draws people from 100+ countries!
- The swag! The bigger the race the more there must be, and the poncho looks fantastic. I am prepared that there might not be much variety for food… hard to beat the beer/cider donuts/veggie dogs type of spreads I get in the Valley.
All in all, a mass participation spectacle—I’m there!