Brownski
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
My wife has been doing this run for years. She took a break between 2012 and 2020 but she has run in every other one. Partly because I’ve always been more of a biker/kayaker/hiker type of guy rather than a runner, partly because I haven’t really been a “joiner” until recently and partly because it’s a lot easier to do this kind of thing if you don’t have to worry about getting a babysitter, I never participated before. This year, we realized there was nothing holding me back and we’ve both been working on getting into better shape so I decided to sign up and see what it is all about. When I decided to do it, it occurred to me there was no reason Junior shouldn’t participate so I signed him up. Dangerboy is at college or else I would have roped him in too.
So the first thing is getting up at ungodly hour. A few of my wife’s sisters were going too so they showed up at my house around 5 AM. We were ready to go. Everybody piled into my mini van and I drove down to lower Manhattan in the dark, found street parking in the Wall Street neighborhood and walked down to the ferry terminal near the seaport. We hopped on a ferry for the ride over to Brooklyn, which was pretty cool. Seeing lower Manhattan all lit up from out on the water was a treat.
By the time we landed the sun was coming up for real. The path to the starting area was marked by a series of flags on the sidewalks. We followed the flags and the crowds.
As we neared the starting line, some volunteers directed us to our wave’s corral. I don’t mind saying the traffic directors were pretty assertive- enough to be off- putting.
On the other hand, I understand the need for order. There were 40k people running so breaking everyone up into smaller groups and controlling start times is pretty important logistically. My wife had some stories to tell about the early years of this event when it was less organized and had a more stampede flavor to it. Lots of people that were assigned to later groups tried moving up to the front and got turned around. My wife’s history was useful here because she knew how to register us in a way that got us near the front. We were in Wave 1B.
Joe Piscipoo was the MC. There was a lot of talking and acknowledging of sponsors and donors and such. Dave Portnoy was there to be the ceremonial starter and couldn’t resist bringing up the NY versus Boston sports rivalry in his remarks. That made me chuckle. Boston guys have such an inferiority complex.
Anyway, after standing in our corral for a couple hours and listening to a lot of speechifying, 1B was finally able to shuffle forward as the runners in front of us got started. Then we were off.
My wife’s sisters were going to walk the whole thing and Junior just took off but I had intended to run with my wife the whole way. I was actually glad I could keep pace with her. When I was younger and played sports, I would give myself shin splints all the time and never really figured out how to train hard without doing so. I’ve been working on that in my latest attempts at better fitness- mainly by not running on hard surfaces. I was happy that everything felt good today.
We stuck together for a while but it was tough inside the tunnel and we were going at different speeds. Maybe halfway through the tunnel, we gave up and I decided to see if I could catch up with my son.
Just running faster wasn’t the whole so,Union though. There was traffic.
The tunnel was about 2 miles of humid, warm, heavy air. I was feeling good but could definitely understand why it makes a lot of people claustrophobic. When we emerged on the other side, breathing in the cooler, dry air felt great.
And man, that wasn’t all that felt good. From the tunnel exit to the finish line, both sides of the route were lined with crowds cheering the runners on. There were long lines of firefighters, military members, cadets, just about anybody you could think of who might wear a uniform. Where there wasn’t a bunch of Marines or JROTC kids, plenty of civilians and volunteers filled in. In spite of not being a joiner, I found all the positive energy to be very uplifting.
At this point I was feeling pretty beat but I kept alternating sprint/ jog/ walk and scanning ahead to try and spot Junior. Never did catch up to him but I got a lot of high fives along the way.All the military groups were offering high fives. I noticed that once I gave one member of a group a high-five, the rest of the group put their hands up and I couldn’t leave them hanging so every high five turned into twenty more.
In addition to all the firefighters who ran in their gear, a few LEOs did too. The woman on the left here wasn’t a big musclebound athlete but she ran it in all her gear. She was carrying a lot more weight than I was.
The route cuts over to the Hudson riverfront.
Than it turns back east for a block or two and hooks south
I still couldn’t find Junior but a couple of other young dudes decided to race eachother from the last turn to the finish line so I sprinted the last stretch with them. I almost forgot to turn around for a pic of the finish line.
So the first thing is getting up at ungodly hour. A few of my wife’s sisters were going too so they showed up at my house around 5 AM. We were ready to go. Everybody piled into my mini van and I drove down to lower Manhattan in the dark, found street parking in the Wall Street neighborhood and walked down to the ferry terminal near the seaport. We hopped on a ferry for the ride over to Brooklyn, which was pretty cool. Seeing lower Manhattan all lit up from out on the water was a treat.
By the time we landed the sun was coming up for real. The path to the starting area was marked by a series of flags on the sidewalks. We followed the flags and the crowds.
As we neared the starting line, some volunteers directed us to our wave’s corral. I don’t mind saying the traffic directors were pretty assertive- enough to be off- putting.
On the other hand, I understand the need for order. There were 40k people running so breaking everyone up into smaller groups and controlling start times is pretty important logistically. My wife had some stories to tell about the early years of this event when it was less organized and had a more stampede flavor to it. Lots of people that were assigned to later groups tried moving up to the front and got turned around. My wife’s history was useful here because she knew how to register us in a way that got us near the front. We were in Wave 1B.
Joe Piscipoo was the MC. There was a lot of talking and acknowledging of sponsors and donors and such. Dave Portnoy was there to be the ceremonial starter and couldn’t resist bringing up the NY versus Boston sports rivalry in his remarks. That made me chuckle. Boston guys have such an inferiority complex.
Anyway, after standing in our corral for a couple hours and listening to a lot of speechifying, 1B was finally able to shuffle forward as the runners in front of us got started. Then we were off.
My wife’s sisters were going to walk the whole thing and Junior just took off but I had intended to run with my wife the whole way. I was actually glad I could keep pace with her. When I was younger and played sports, I would give myself shin splints all the time and never really figured out how to train hard without doing so. I’ve been working on that in my latest attempts at better fitness- mainly by not running on hard surfaces. I was happy that everything felt good today.
We stuck together for a while but it was tough inside the tunnel and we were going at different speeds. Maybe halfway through the tunnel, we gave up and I decided to see if I could catch up with my son.
Just running faster wasn’t the whole so,Union though. There was traffic.
The tunnel was about 2 miles of humid, warm, heavy air. I was feeling good but could definitely understand why it makes a lot of people claustrophobic. When we emerged on the other side, breathing in the cooler, dry air felt great.
And man, that wasn’t all that felt good. From the tunnel exit to the finish line, both sides of the route were lined with crowds cheering the runners on. There were long lines of firefighters, military members, cadets, just about anybody you could think of who might wear a uniform. Where there wasn’t a bunch of Marines or JROTC kids, plenty of civilians and volunteers filled in. In spite of not being a joiner, I found all the positive energy to be very uplifting.
At this point I was feeling pretty beat but I kept alternating sprint/ jog/ walk and scanning ahead to try and spot Junior. Never did catch up to him but I got a lot of high fives along the way.All the military groups were offering high fives. I noticed that once I gave one member of a group a high-five, the rest of the group put their hands up and I couldn’t leave them hanging so every high five turned into twenty more.
In addition to all the firefighters who ran in their gear, a few LEOs did too. The woman on the left here wasn’t a big musclebound athlete but she ran it in all her gear. She was carrying a lot more weight than I was.
The route cuts over to the Hudson riverfront.
Than it turns back east for a block or two and hooks south
I still couldn’t find Junior but a couple of other young dudes decided to race eachother from the last turn to the finish line so I sprinted the last stretch with them. I almost forgot to turn around for a pic of the finish line.
