NYCM2002 - Karen Bingham

Race Report

New York City Marathon

Sunday, November 3, 2002

Okay, I cannot begin to do the day justice in the time remaining in the day and the energy left in my weary body. It was a BEAUTEOUS day in NYC! Sunny, briliant blue skies, cold but not frigid. Kathryn and I made it to Dean & DeLuca's for coffee and saw Katie and Matt et al filming the Today show and all the Halloween costumes.

Then Mary D and Carlene arrived and we hightailed it to the top of the Empire State Building. Oh my. It is a majestic city and you can see it all on a clear day, which it gloriously was. It was more than sobering, though, to see the southern Manhattan skyline and try to imagine where the Towers were.

Everywhere in NYC today there were people walking the streets in costume...all day loong! This afternoon Mary and Harriet and I did the expo thing. There are bigger expos, but no matter. WHY would you want to spend time in the expo when you can be out and about in this city??!!

This evening dinner...with friends...as many of the penguins as had arrived gathered together. After which most of us took the subway to Greenwich Village for the Halloween parade. About that I will say very little, except that many of these were not your usual costumes.

I have broken a cardinal rule, but will rectify it tomorrow and Saturday. I was on my feet constantly today, from 8am to 9pm--except for the 1.5 hour or so at dinnertime.

Since we're passing out cell phone numbers...I will be carrying mine during the race Sunday morning: 615-579-7391. And since I'm walking it, it will be easier to talk if anyone cares to call, I would LOVE that! I only hope I can hear it ring above the deafening roars of the infamous NYC crowds!

ps I met Shoshana, the woman I will help guide in the race, for the first time today in the expo. It will be a most interesting race--I'm still wondering if she won't be guiding me instead of the reverse.

What can I say. Yesterday and today NYC was positively glorious! The forecast for tomorrow is good.

Yesterday morning we ran in Central Park with about 2,693 other runners--Cher and Milt, Violet and Millard, Jess, and me. Cool beans. I'm sorry, people around me may be sick of it, but I've been saying 'cool beans' constantly. This will be a quick group report. Pandemonium now seems to be alive and well in our room.

Yesterday afternoon all hell broke loose in that same room when Kathryn lost her wallet, which eventually was found to be exactly where it was supposed to be. I will not elaborate in embarrassing fashion, except to say that Kelly Ambrose predicted this with great and loving specificity.

Last night we all gathered at Carmine's (thank you again Deb Sullivan for all your work). I have never eaten so much food, it just kept coming, course after course. Then Kathryn, Carlene, Mary D and I saw 42nd Street which was grand. Times Square at 10pm when the theatres are getting out is not to be believed.

We are up early and off to cheer Kelly Ambrose in the International 8K run in Central Park this morning. Right now COFFEE!!!! is an extreme necessity.

Mary D says the November challenge is to rest...rest and recovery. Take some time to stop and smell the molding leaves. (Okay, Mary has been awake maybe 10 minutes and her sense of humor leaves a bit to be desired in the a.m.

Carlene says to emphasize that Carmine's was a fabulous feed. I am m obligded to report that Carlene rose, unaided at 6:45am this morning. This is, by all reports, an amazing feat.

Following the Friendship Run we are doing the Circle Line cruise of Manhattan!! More later, wish you ALL were her!

It's 10:30 and I'm as ready as I'm every gonna be...ready to go to bed too, but not without a quick report.

Daniel hosted the party tonight, and it was perfect in every possible way. We had a lovely salad, followed by superb pasta. I then got up to visit with people around the room. Such a nice meal. Moments later the waiters began bringing out the main meat course...and I thought we were done with the pasta. THEN tiramisu followed. This is not a good thing to serve me the night before a race. I am a sucker for whipped cream.

It was a wonderful party. I feel so fortunate to have these people, and you people, in my life. Thank you all!

Now...to bed. I will start with Harriet's Hot Flashes Achilles guides at the early start at 8:50. Then it is the job and challenge of all the other penguins running the race and starting at 11:10 to catch us!

...enjoying everyone else's reports! I'm so proud of all our finisher's. The only person I haven't heard about is David Gegear, and whether he finished.

I must be the last penguin to leave the city. In fact, my flight out isn't until tonight. I'll wander Manhattan this afternoon, and take in an art gallery or museum.

MJ, we thought we didn't make it on the Today Show yesterday...so thanks for letting us know! My mom thought she saw me, but wasn't sure. She said...the person had a big gold necklace on and I know you don't wear big necklaces. Duh, Mom...it was my MARATHON MEDAL!!!

I don't even WATCH the Today Show, but went to the studio location again this morning with Katherine and Cher, to get coffee at Dean & Deluca's. We hit the jackpot. I got to shake hands with Will and Grace as they were leaving the set...and Cher high-fived Jack.

Yesterday we spent a moving two hours visiting Ground Zero and St. Patrick's church, where the recovery and rescue operations were centered. My race report will have to wait until I'm home tomorrow. I'm still high from the spectator support at the race and the penguin fellowship of the last several days. This has been such a great trip, to a great city. I want to thank ALL the NYCE penguins for the wonderful dinner arrangements and entertainment...Deb, Daniel, Ken and Ellen...THANK YOU!!!

I arrived home late last night, so buzzed from the whole NYC/M experience that I couldn't sleep. This morning my head fuzzy, my body heavy, and my spirits low. The Wednesday after a Sunday marathon is always that lowest point for me physically and emotionally--the day that I get down and depressed. Knowing it is makes it much less debilitating... so I am always kind to myself the third day following. It's the time to focus on the positive impressions of NYC, the marathon, and the time spent with so many good and dear friends. It was a spectacular week, in every way imaginable.

I haven't the presence of mind to write my report yet. This one may be different. I think the city may require one report, the race another. I have been to Manhattan many times years ago, alone on business trips. The last one was about the time I began running. I saw so much more, from such a different perspective, this time. Seeing this city with friends was very special.

I must share my departing visual image of NYC with you. A non-penguin friend took me to the airport. She arrived early enough that we were able to drive to the NJ side of the Hudson (to Weehoken??) and have dinner at a seafood restaurant that jutted out into the Hudson River. It was the most magnificent view I ever hope to have--miles and miles of the NYC skyline, glittering and blazing with nighttime lights. It was one of those lifelong images that will remain forever...along with the truly memorable places I've seen, usually of natural wonders, not manmade ones.

Yes, it was different, very different than my other marathons. Nothing about NYCM was normal; everything was different. It was downright comical in many ways, and far grander than they claim it is in others. Background: I trained to walk NYCM as an Achilles Guide, expecting a 7-8 hour finish and knowing I'd take the early start along with Harriet Kang, her Hot Flashes, and the Hot Flashes Achilles guides. My mission was to guide a woman named Shoshana who has arthritis, Reynaud's disease and severe hypoglycemia. I was to wear a backpack to carry the extra clothes for warmth and extra food for blood sugar stabilization that she might need. I was nervous. I had pre-marathon jitters like I haven't had for years. I'd had no communication with Shoshana and met her for the first time on Thursday in the expo. There I learned that the Hot Flashes group would be walking the first 20 miles together, and that Shoshana would then switch to a 7 minute walk/3 minute run ratio for the last 6 miles. This was not welcome news, since I'd trained using 7/3 throughout my long walks. I was certain I would lock up if I didn't run at all until mile 20. My pace worries were assuaged somewhat by the fact that Shoshana clearly was tough, having been a century bicyclist until recently, and walked four other marathons. My saving grace on marathon eve was the world's best pre-marathon roommies: Carlene Paquette and Kathryn Lye. Kathryn was a world-class assistant...mothering me and fetching all the things I didn't know I needed. Carlene applied her practical, analytical eye to all my preparations...NOTHING was left out, nothing forgotten, everything organized. Without them, I'd have been a basket case by marathon morning. (I'm now wondering how to finagle them to every marathon as crew.) I was up at 5am, out the door at 6. The first comic relief was my race garb: umpteen layers, starting with too many oversized cotton t-shirts (cotton!)--one for the Hot Flashes, two for Achilles. Then a lightweight running jacket, topped by a oversized hot pink fleece pullover courtesy of Salvation Army. I have SEEN photos already. Trust me, I looked like a garish Pillsbury doughboy! The next big difference was the backpack, which weighed about 5 pounds with it's assortment of gloves, gators, earmuffs, and food. The food was a hoot, nothing I'd dream of using to run a marathon: energy bars and a peanut butter sandwich, with GU for good measure (I never used it). On the bus to the start I tentatively ate the delicious cream cheese and lox sandwich Harriet offered, AFTER she insisted that I'd have no stomach problems walking. (You continue to digest food while you walk, unlike with running.) Though the early starters missed the bridge-shaking excitement and extravaganza of the late-morning mass start, there were definite advantages. The Achilles people had their own buses. No standing in line for us. We were driven straight to the mouth of the Verrazano Bridge. We used the nice clean facilities on board the bus, stepped off, took a few memory photos, and 10 minutes later our race started! Forget hours of shivering in tents, sleeping on the ground, and peeing in troughs and behind barricades. Our 8:50am start was quiet, unnoticed. No hoopla. Just a few hundred courageous men and women moving quietly and slowly by foot or in chairs over the Verrazano Bridge under a brilliant sky, with a more brilliant NYC skyline blazing in the morning sunlight on the far side of the Hudson. With their first steps, the men and women around me were overcoming all the odds. On the Verrazano, I was passed by a man with two prosthetic legs. Another with one. As we came off the bridge onto the long straight thoroughfare through Brooklyn, we traded paces for a mile or two with Bill. Bill has severe cerebral palsy. He pushed his wheelchair, backwards with one foot, through the race. His Achilles guides surrounded him with shouted encouragements and tried to clear the way, but Bill didn't appear to need it. He was gregariously cheerful and alert, looking backwards over his shoulder and dodging manhole covers with alacrity. The cry I remember from the first miles of the marathon is "Make way for Bill!" as he careened by us down the hills. We had to jump out of the way of Bill and his chair. Such was our inspiration in the early miles. Shoshana, my Achilles athlete, set a quick pace. She was covered from head to toe--the requirements of her Orthodox Jewish faith--wearing a long coolmax skirt over sweatpants as well as many layers of top garments to prevent the problems associated with Reynaud's. She began the race wearing a plump down jacket (which she shed almost immediately and which Harriet and I carried until mile 8 when we handed it off to Sheldon and our Achilles support crew). Shoshana was prepared for the cold and lack of fuel that put her in the medical tent during last year's race. She was determined. She chatted endlessly, entertaining us with quirky stories of her faith, family life, and athletic endeavors which were not always considered acceptable in her community. I realized quickly that it was quite possible Shoshana would be guiding ME by the end of the race. She carried her own "feedbag" which contained 7 hard boiled eggs, the food that best sustains her blood sugar level. She refused to let me carry anything other than her down coat and she wasn't happy at all about that. I used my backpack to stuff the excess jackets of the other Achilles Guides. We rolled slowly down the thoroughfare in Brooklyn, eventually entering an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. This was the first place that we early starters encountered groups of spectators. It was an eery feeling as we sliced through the silence of the austere neighborhood, past the somber gazes of men, women, and children who eyed us from behind their dark garments. I wasn't sure, maybe I imagined the disapproval, but they appeared to be little pleased with our presence or Shoshana's appearance. She explained that they could surmise, from her matching and odd-looking garments, that she was unorthodox Orthodox. My memories of the next miles are vague--over the Pulaski Bridge and through Queens which I recall as being largely industrial. I was absorbed in chatting with Shoshana, Harriet, and Jeanette Lampron who was also a guide, monitoring Shoshana's hard-boiled egg intake, stopping for photos, making and getting phone calls. That was different, the phone calls. I made the first ones on the Verrazano Bridge to my parents and in-laws. I had to carry the phone for Achilles purposes, but early on I realized that since I was walking I could share this race with family and friends. I'm embarrassed to say that, even walking, I got marathon brain melt and can't remember who all called me. Kellee Mulloy did umpteen times, and Tom Lally, and Kathe Allison, and others. I know we saw Kathryn and Carlene, Myra and Warren, Joe, Milt, and and...? also I had classic brain melt; I can't remember who, where, or when...but it was wonderful to hear your voices and see your faces. Thank you all! This race already has a special aura in my mind's memory, as the one that I literally ran with friends who were not there. Somewhere in Brooklyn, I stopped worrying about what I might feel like at mile 23 and whether I'd be able to guide at that point. I felt good NOW, time was flying by. I wasn't stiffening up in any noticeable way. It was alternately cold in the shade when the breeze hit us, and warm in the sunny spots. We marveled at the mildness of the day and basked in the warmth of the sunshine. I caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, and the NYC skyline was always catching us by surprise at odd spots on the course. Here I shed my jacket and did the rest of the race in long-sleeved coolmax topped by two cut-off cotton t-shirts. At some point during those lost miles, I remember the smile on my face beginning to grow. It was quite strange; I couldn't stop it. That was different, the smile. Every race has it's moments of joy and exuberance. Every marathon I've run has been punctuated by patches of feeling marvelous and patches of feeling damned awful. This was different. Around mile 16, in the middle of the Queensborough Bridge, I heard the dull roar that everyone had described, except that it was MORE than described. The smile deepened. It grew and grew and never went away. I could not help crying as we walked down 1st Ave into Manhattan. The next ten miles were just full of that feeling, which is impossible, really, to describe. At 20 we DID begin our 7/3s and I was fine running, in fact I just kept feeling better. Shosahna never faltered. We went through the Bronx and Harlem, many lovely neighborhoods I thought, but she said not at night or alone. Whatever. I will never forget the crowds, especially the firefighters waving from atop their engines at every other intersection, the kids with water and oranges whose eyes begged you to take their gifts, the people calling my name, and the NYPD who were everywhere for us. I had to high-five people. HAD TO! Something I'd vowed since MCM 97 never to do again. It was different. I smiled and smiled. It was out of my control. We finished in the dark in Central Park, in 7:55:15. It was good, within Shoshana's goal time. She was unbelievably strong and I felt good to the end. Shortly after we got to the Achilles area, I lost Shoshana and Harriet; then found Ron Horton; then lost him. Walked to the Subway; stopped at Starbuck's for a TomLatte, the best tasting cup of my life. It was different; there was much about NYCM that was different for me. But mostly, amazingly, that smile. It felt like it started in my soul, not on my face. I'm still not sure exactly what it was all about--challenges and tribulations and uncertainty and friends and support and pink hats and penguins for sure. The best part is that I have the certain feeling that that smile will continue to grow. NYCM...yes, it was--definitely, amazingly--different. Karen B