BQ or Bust!

skyblue46 wrote: »

I was a bit confused by the tracker. There were 2 people with your name. One was from Dublin but running under a U.S. flag and the other from New York running under an Irish flag. After looking at a 3:29 and a 3:59 I decided you were the Dub!

You’re very kind. He’s 20 years younger as well. I’m a dual citizen hence the nationality status. Tracker is confusing anyway - mile equivalents for 5k splits are way off.

The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
Slow down, you move too fast...
Sun 4 Nov

New York Marathon 2018 (3:29:18)

It’s mile 15, and I have eased right off for the long climb over the Queensboro Bridge. I’ve just been serenaded by Anna and Mrs Mc during the short stretch through Queens. Never one of the glamorous boroughs, but one with its own diversity and unique charms. It was home for us during the late 80s to mid 90s, and I’ve been looking forward to being there again, crossing the iconic bridge and into ‘the city’, as Manhattan was always called back then, distinct in character and form from the outer boroughs. We are on the bridge, but we are on the lower of the structure’s two carriageways, with no view of the gleaming midtown towers, just the sight of hundreds of other runners toiling up the punishing drag, with the thunder of traffic overhead. A minor disappointment that is ultimately swallowed up in this loud, frenetic, in-your-face, exhilarating and absolutely huge event.

This is New York City, baby! Its signature marathon echoes the sound and energy and managed chaos that makes this town unique. Unexpectedly, in this darkening age of ours, the city and its incredible endurance running showcase has filled me with pride, because, like anyone who has spent any significant amount of time here, the city is part of me, and always will be.

I pass a Mayo AC runner and offer a few words. It’s one of only two Irish club singlets spotted during the whole buildup and race, the other a Clonliffe Harrier who tapped me on the shoulder just after the finish line. We would shake hands wordlessly, a little shellshocked by the punishment just handed out by the course. I am wearing the Raheny colours myself for the first time, and proudly, for I’ve grown very fond of that club and its extremely warm and welcoming personnel. The singlet gets plenty of shouts, from random Dubliners and ex-pats out watching, and also from natives responding to the colours and shamrock logo with many shouts of “Go Irish!”

Mayo AC is struggling with the punishing incline. My friendly shout is answered with a raising of the head and a flicker of smile, and I turn back to the relentless drag. It’s the third bridge of the day, and like the others is being negotiated with great care. Over the thud of feet on pavement, there’s an occasional shout of desperation (“Fcuk you, hill!), and some whoops at the cresting of the summit. I celebrate more quietly myself with a little clenching and slight raising of my fist, a small gesture I’ve become accustomed to making at the end of tough sessions and long runs. I am pretty much on track. I’ve passed the Pulaski Bridge halfway point in 1:40, within 45 secs of the target number after getting through Brooklyn, and before that the extraordinary opening climb and descent of the Verrazzano Bridge, using a variable pace strategy based on terrain-specific 5k splits. And so, rounding the corkscrew turn at the end of the Queensboro, I appear to be in decent shape, enjoying the descent and the first roar of ‘Thunder Alley’, the long and very loud stretch up First Avenue to the Bronx. Things are looking OK. Have I, in the fervently shouted words of thousands of boisterous onlookers, actually ‘Got This’?

No city seen from the bridge, so no wild promise, no beauty, no mystery. Sixteen miles in, and nothing’s in the bag. The race is only beginning - just like this report - on the 59th Street Bridge.

The opening half through Brooklyn’s succession of neighbourhoods, each one attempting to out-shout the next, had been managed well enough. A couple of things had gone wrong, though. In mile 4, my beloved prescription Ray-Bans had somehow slipped off the top of my head. I tried to catch them as they fell down my back, succeeding only in knocking them a couple of feet to my right. I watched helplessly as they hit the ground, both lenses popping out just before an oblivious runner crunched the frame. A fair few quid’s worth of name-brand varifocal eyewear destroyed in an instant. I was philosophical about it: for the shades themselves it was a good death, offered up to the New York Marathon gods. But now I could barely read the piece of paper in my pocket with the custom 5k splits. And the 3:20 paceband on my wrist, to come into play in the second half, was an unreadable blur of tiny digits.

OK, focus. Not the end of the world. You got this! I’d popped the first of six gels (the most I’ve ever managed) at the 4 mile marker. I was carrying a couple of straws, thoughtfully provided by FBOT, who seemed to have a stock of every emergency item that might come into play. These were good for drinking from paper cups, but by mile 8 I’d dropped both, as well as my backup cocktail straw, while fumbling awkwardly in my pockets. Butterfingers! Part of the problem was the gloves, stupidly still on my comically inept hands although the opening chill had definitely passed and the conditions, as expected, were ideal. I’d dumped the gloves, far too late, and reverted successfully to the ‘pinch and gulp’ method. With water and Gatorade every mile there was no shortage of hydration. The stations were a headwreck though. New Yorkers grab water like they jaywalk, darting from all angles, slowing down, reaching across you - mad stuff. But I survived all this, and also the congestion: with 52,000+ runners, many of them starting optimistically far up the wave order, there was no real clear road until mile 19 or 20, believe it or not, when the inevitable fade began to take its toll on enough runners to finally thin the crowd.

Somehow though, all this seemed appropriate, along with the hundreds of starters stopping to snap selfies on the Verrazzano. Some runners had even jumped the barrier to run the less congested but more scenic left hand side, foolishly extending their marathon as each wave takes a slightly different route. The merge point, at a relatively narrow Bay Ridge thoroughfare, was another choke point where the road had seemed impossibly overloaded, but somehow everything had continued to move at about the right rate. Mentally sapping, but also exciting. What an event it truly is. In all this delightfully good-humoured chaos, I was hitting the 5k mats pretty much as desired: 24:40, 48:04, 71:37... All good, despite the clumsy early errors. ‘Only the dead know Brooklyn’, goes the old Thomas Wolfe story, but we were making it through the world capital of hipsterdom well enough.

Back on First Ave, I’m expecting to see my cousin at 90th Street. I move over in good time and spot her and partner in plenty of time for the day’s only real high five. I feel a bit bad for not stopping, because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing, sometimes right in front of you - alarmingly, but always with great gusto and theatricality, loudly acknowledging the support. And so, as the uptown crowds begin to thin and the road begins to clear, the course, which has been sapping away at the legs, asserts itself. A pair of addicts shuffle across the road, miraculously avoiding collision as only the truly oblivious can. The Willis Avenue bridge to the Bronx is next, yet another leg drainer. I’ve been running the second half mostly by feel, occasionally glancing at the watch where I can barely make out the average pace. The legs have been protesting since the ten mile mat, and by now the needle is dropping further down the gauge from the 4:44 average needed to sustain the target. I will learn later that I did not, in fact, manage to return to MP after the Queensboro Bridge, immortalized of course in that Simon and Garfunkel song. The legs have been slowly dying, and there’s not much I can do to raise the pace. The song’s opening lines now come back to haunt me. I’m indeed slowing, and definitely not feelin’ groovy as Manhattan gives way to the Bronx, and the first of the 3:30 pace groups draws alongside. I’ve passed this posse earlier, in the depths of Brooklyn. I cut my losses and try to stay with them - that would take me under 3:30 at least, as surely they have started ahead of me. Now it’s all I can do to dig in and try to match stride with 10-15 runners who remain in the group - far, far less than earlier, when I’d struggled to find room just to ease around them. The pacers themselves are no substitute for their DCM counterparts, offering the occasional positive word but largely aloof from their dwindling charges.

“F*ck you, Wall”, shouts a runner just in front. “No wall here”, responds a pacer, dismissively, and the runner is swallowed up. I manage to stay with the group for the sadly short trip through the Bronx, but they drift ahead on the final river crossing. “Last Damn Bridge” says a sign, its holder helpfully repeating that welcome message through a megaphone. Fifth Avenue and Central Park await as we enter the final five miles. On Fifth, a second 3:30 group, this one a bit bigger than the last, engulfs me, and I realise that even a 3:30 finish will require some additional work, although I’m convinced these pace groups are a good bit ahead of their targets. We are now in death march territory. I feel like I’m crawling, but there is solace from the number of runners still being passed, many clutching cramped muscles in agony, others reduced to a dejected walking slouch. I am hurting, but at least I am still running. I have never stopped or walked in a race and I won’t start now. I know that Anna is ahead near the entrance to the Park, very close to the hospital where our daughters were born. It gives me a little lift, and I struggle through the glare of the midday sun, badly missing those sacrificial shades, but still putting one foot in front of the other. I try to invoke Duanington’s ‘turnover and form’ mantra, shortening the stride, lifting the head. A shout and I spot A and Mrs Mc again, although I can barely raise a wave and Anna’s photo later reveals a shocking collapse of posture, my head lolling forward as if desperately trying to drag the body with it. We enter Central Park for the last two miles. My back is now aching too, and I can feel the long neglect of core muscles coming home to roost. But at least now there is shade and I revive a little in the Central Park foliage. This park is another beloved place, a treasured part of every New Yorker’s leisure and sporting heritage. I must endure. Another couple of Raheny roars and I catch the eye of one of the shouters. It all helps, and I can feel my spirit - if not my pace - begin to soar. The target is of course long, long gone. But I should at least have another 3:29, the original Boston qualifying time that gives this log its name. It’s a small consolation to an otherwise very mediocre performance, marred by an ugly 8-minute positive split, surpassed in awfulness only by that same Boston unmentionable.

Central Park South is another blur. I’ve never been more desperate to see a finish line. At last, the final turn and back into the Park at the 26 marker. Of course there’s yet another drag, but the endorphins have kicked in and the pain temporarily melted away. I probably pass 20 runners in the last 300m. The drag gives way to what may even be a few ironically downhill finishing yards and finally, we are done.

I go through the finishing area in a daze, accepting my medal and ‘recovery bag’, getting a few finisher photos and generally acting like I feel - just damn glad to be finished, to be alive, and to have had the privilege of running, reasonably respectably, in the magnificent, magnanimous, majestic New York Marathon.

Previous PB: 3:22:11 (Dublin 2017)
Target: 3:19:59
Result: 3:29:18
5,168 place (of 52,697) :eek:
155th M55 (of 2,239)
Age grade: 69.8%
VDOT: 45.7
Verdict: Ich bin ein New Yorker.

WTD: 73k (45m)
MTD: 48 (30)
YTD: 2,846 (1,768)