The Bronx

I have some advice for Marathon spectators that wish to be helpful by handing our water, towels, candy bars, or whatnot as runners stumble past: forget bananas. Some guy decided to purchase the entire GNP of Costa Rica and hand it out in the Bronx just past the (whatchootalkinbout) Willis Avenue Bridge, and I innocently decided to grab one. Unfortunately, I failed to recall my Cartoon Boobytraps 101 class from second grade as I maintained my line down the edge of the road. A couple of near-disastersteps later amidst a massive pile of trampled banana peels, I found myself at a dead stop on the sidewalk, cursing the concept of such a dangerous high-potassium fruit. That guy couldn't have more effectively tried to sabotage my race had he painted a hole in the street.

At least I had the banana. I started running again, peeling it as I trotted along, thinking that now, free of manufactured road hazards, I might at least enjoy me some sweet tropicality. Presciently, I recalled Sister Carmen's fourth-grade alternate nightmare across the hall from Miss Meehan's happy homeroom and how she'd check student lunchbags before they were discarded to confirm that all food had been eaten. Recess lore held that poor Nicky Snider had been forced to eat a brown, potentially rotting banana absentmindedly packed by his mother, while the rest of the terror-stricken class watched, in the name of starving children in Uzbekistan, or wherever.

Sergeant Carmen was one sadistic bitch.

I looked at my shiny new banana again.

OK.

Worst. Banana. Ever.

I pulled to a corner at some intersection and yakked out the half-chewed vileness, as some kid in my periphery reacted with a preadolecent "Ewwww!" and buried his head in his mother's coat. You have no idea, kid. I can only hope that he learned the lesson that he should never EVER take anything from strangers, especially strangers that seem friendly. The nice ones are the most dangerous.

And leaving that unsavory incident on the sidewalk (and in a garbage can- no one would be slipping on MY banana peel), I found we were nearly headed back into Manhattan. The race only runs through The Bronx for a brief mile or so. The route reminds me of oldsters in a mobile home that are trying to visit all 50 states, and as such get out of the RV long enough to say, "Ok, we've been to North Dakota." Maybe they stop at a diner and have a cup of coffee. Then they find another place that feels more like someplace. Not that I disliked The Bronx- I'd run this route before, and haven't had to dodge a single bullet. I like the bridges- they're frequent and short. Mostly I like the name, though. The use of definite articles in reference to place- The Ohio State University, The Netherlands (The Noplace?), The Fire Swamp, etc- announces that this is THE Bronx, and all other Bronxes out there (if they have the audacity to call themselves Bronx) merely share the same name and are inherently subordinate. The implication, I think, is that you will remember this place when you're gone.

I will remember the Third Avenue Bridge. Crowd noise dropped to a whisper as we climbed the approach, roughly six miles from the finish. Suddenly, we were a mass of a thousand people running through North Dakota, with only the sounds of our feet on the grated metal bridge surface. I looked up through the silence to see Midtown's skyscrapers resolving in the distance, the jagged horizon buried behind a low-rise sea in the foreground. I shouted:

"Why's everyone so quiet!?"

A halfhearted cheer arose from runners adjacent. My foot planted on the downward arc of the bridge curvature on the Manhattan side and noise from the Harlem crowd began to seep into the air. This is not a wall, I thought. This is a gateway.

My strides grew more regular.

I remembered how to smile.

I would be finishing this race.

Manhattan: First Avenue

Tim an I used to imagine on Sunday trips to the gym that we were kick returners, sometimes following blockers, other times avoiding oncoming tacklers as we zigzagged through the gathered crowds on Broadway in downtown Manhattan. We used to joke when one of us got hung up behind an old lady or a mass of tortoising Eurotouristas that our "wedge" blocking broke down. I bring this up because running in the 4ish-hour crowd reminded me of these Sundays, as much for the bobbing and weaving through masses of humanity as the foggy, hungover feeling that was beginning to creep over my body on the Queensboro. Those Sundays, I didn't want to go to the gym, but I did anyway. And I'd officially made up my mind that while I didn't care to run the next ten miles, I would be doing that, too, engaged in the most interminable kick return of all time.

I should also note that I was no longer in the 4-hour crowd. Sprinkled throughout the mass of racers were volunteer pace-setters with signs on their backs indicating an approximation of what their ultimate time may be. In Brooklyn, I'd hung nicely with the 4 hour group; in Queens, I started seeing some 4:15s.

This would become a consistently depressing theme.

According to everyone I'd consulted coming into the race, the turn onto First Avenue is supposed to be a major re-energizer for the runners. I will grant, the bigger crowds, the cheering, and the sense of increased proximity to the finish line was emotionally useful; I found familiarity to be the most encouraging sign, though. I'd run this route before- not specifically down First, but down the East River from Harlem. I could gauge distances. For example, as anyone that rides in a NYC Taxi is reminded on the back of the driver's seat, every four blocks is approximately 1/5th of a mile. Twenty blocks is about a mile. So I could run 18 or 19 blocks and walk one or two and feel like I was getting somewhere. I would be coming to my first "somewhere" reasonably shortly at 90th St., supposedly the St. Vincent's Hospital cheering location, and where I knew I would at least find my parents.

I hoped that, anyway.

Of course, measurements and pacing were theoretical; reality was maddening. My legs would begin to feel better for brief flickers of time and my stride, naturally, would get a bit longer. Seemingly within an instant of regaining an internally acceptable pace, though, near that 18- or 19-block mark (or the 8- or 9-block mark), my calf(ves) or my thigh(s) or my hamstring(s) would spontaneously contract, forcing a halt to progress as I pulled off to the side to attempt to regain control of my bodily functions. I hadn't felt dehydrated the whole race; fluid stations were useful only for purposes of self-image, as other runners walked through these areas too, and so I could refrain from muttering the series of expletives I'd been exhaling since Queens for a hundred yards per mile as I gulped down Gatorade Endurance Formula (TM) and Poland Spring (TM), the official drinks of desperation.

I managed to extract myself from my focus-coma for the few blocks around 90th and slowed considerably at Bar East, the designated Marathon party zone for St. Vinny's. As I slowed and scanned wildly for a recognizable face, the crowd stared back with equally vacant eyes. One of them shouted "Keep going, buddy!" and was forced to catch myself before responding "Eat shit, buddy!" A wave of primordial panic overtook me. That hangover melon in my gut nearly exploded my broken body into a mass of ectoplasmic rage. Some guy cut me off, and I started trying to catch up with the possible intent of pummeling his face into the street until my hands hit pavement.

Oh, Hi Mom!

I saw her on the side of the road, my dad standing next to her, she holding up a "Don't Stop Believin'" sign she'd made at the office. Well then.

They hadn't seen me yet, so I surprised them as I pulled up looking as if I'd been having a jolly good time. I hugged my Mom and answered a few questions- "How're you feeling?" "Great. This is turning into a nature hike, though." "How's the knee?" "Fabulous. I don't think I even have a knee anymore." Blah? "Blah-great-blah." etc. I let them take a photo and took my leave feeling... better. I'd made my first real checkpoint- getting to my parents without looking or sounding like a rabid bloodthirsty lunatic, or worse, like I might not finish. Next was getting to the (whatchootalkinabout) Willis Avenue Bridge and the Bronx, another thirty or so blocks down the road. Not far at all. Things, it seemed, were looking up.

There, with seventeen-plus miles down and nineish to go, I began to think about my tiered pre-race expectations. Initially, I'd thought I could break four hours, but that seemed unrealistic given recent tea leaves and shirt-signs. My secondary goal was to beat the average race time, which in 2007 was somewhere around 4:30; I've always prided myself on being above-average. This still seemed doable, if I could just stop breaking down. I thought this just as a sprinkling of 4:30ers passed me, idle on the sidewalk, chatting up an extraordinarily bored police officer and stretching my calf muscles around 116th St.

Yep. 4:30 or bust.

The ultimate disappointment would come, though, if I would fail to break five hours. The New York Times publishes the name of every runner that finishes with a time under five hours. Everyone else... would need to hurry to get to the afterparty.

The conditions called for a readjustment of priorities and expectations. I'd run the first half of the race well. I simply had to run the second half poorly, it seemed, to make good on five hours. I haven't always said this, but I may start saying it now: If you can't aim high, just try and aim.

Queens

I'd been here before. Not on the Pulaski bridge- I don't really like to run in random parts of Queens. It's a metaphor. You know- the bridge between where I am and where I'm going. I think it's more rare for them to be focused in moments, as they are on TV, or in movies, or on a bridge in New York. More often, I imagine, they're spread out over days, months, years, as we step towards the rest of our lives or wait to die. We choose whether to keep running or to curl up and surrender. These past sixteen weeks have been about pushing forward, for me, after years of sitting idly driven only by my own inertia. As muscle cramps seeped into my calves, and then my quadriceps, and then my hamstrings on and past the gateway to Queens, just past Mile 13, I found time as I stretched and winced to reflect upon occasions in my life that warranted surrender.

As a junior high school baseball player, unable to master the vagaries of the slow roller.

As a senior high school wrestler, beaten for the second time at the district meet by a guy that was just a little bit better. Or a little less afflicted by a bum shoulder. Schreiber, of Cuyahoga Heights. He didn't even go to State.

As a freshman college football player, just a little too slow (who knew 3 tenths of a second could be such an eternity?) and weary of recurring injury.

Other than the at the end of every time I rewatch Major League, these are the last three times I remember crying- when I came to the conclusion, or that conclusion was delivered, that my time to "play" was over. It wasn't necessarily the failure, I don't think- it was the finality of that ending. For those of us who participate in these things, it's not like the end of a lost game or match, a poor grade, or a bad day at the office- for these failures, there is always tomorrow and an opportunity to do better. I liken this feeling more to a little death- of hope, perhaps- of something inside.

I find it very difficult to rationalize these "little deaths."

Another time I cried that I can recall was on the last day of fourth grade. I remember it vividly- sitting at our desks, the clock inching toward 2:30, Sister Jane giving the day's final announcements on the P.A. At my elementary school, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross & Whitney Houston singing "That's What Friends Are For" was the customary good-bye song that played over the P.A. In past and coming years, this had been the happiest of moments- as soon as those jerks stopped singing, we were free to go. In fourth grade, leaving Miss Meehan's class, though, a funny thing happened: we didn't want to go. As Stevie started playing that harmonica, the first of us started sniffling. By the time Whitney jumped in, the whole room was bawling- boys, girls, everybody- with a semi-elderly Irish lady looking on with awe and kindness.

I've had many years to contemplate this phenomenon, and there are a few potential explanations, the fact that we LOVED Miss Meehan and we didn't want to leave her class being the audience's populist choice. Hormonal imbalances, childhood immaturity, and mass psychogenic illness round out the likely possibilities. I have an alternate theory, though, and one that is itself rather depressing: Each of us, in our 10-year-old heads, had come to the same realization independently but as a group- that this had been, and would be remembered as, the best year of our lives. Every other year to follow would not measure up.

This, it seems, would be something to mourn. And so we did, without really understanding why. And I feel as if the early part of my twenties has been spent tacitly giving credence to this theory. I've been given much and produce little. I had high aspirations that have not been met with the requisite work ethic to achieve them. Business as usual was leaving me as just another worker bee amongst the hive of Americans that go to work everyday as a timewaster between the end of education and the onset of dementia.

I will turn 30 this year. The choices are clear, and time isn't exactly running out, as far as I know. But it continues to tick.

These were the thoughts I reflected on as I made my way towards the Queensboro Bridge, a bridge I'd once before stutter-run in an abortive training exercise to Roosevelt Island weeks earlier. We would be running on the lower level. Adjacent racers howled under the overpass as we entered, their voices reflecting off the concrete and steel above back to us below, formulating an initial crescendo of voices that dropped into the unsilence of a thousand feet hitting pavement amidst the occasional grunt. I slowed to a walk on the approach- this was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that I dropped my pace, but it was the first time I had done so willingly, without the prompt of a shot of pain from my legs. "What's the point?" I whispered aloud. I came to a halt.

Runners passed on my left as I hauled my right leg onto the divider and tried to stretch out the recurring cramps that had hounded me for the previous three miles. I stared blankly ahead at the curvature of the bridge ceiling. I considered the possibility that should one of these cramps develop into a muscle pull, my race would be over. Maybe that would be a good-

No.

I would be running when I hit Manhattan.

Brooklyn

I am a leaf on the wind... Watch me soar.

For a few moments, there were no roads. No crowds, no Marathon, no fears. I floated high above the fray, looking down, marveling at the streaming convection of bodies making its way through the veins and arteries of this city. I couldn't feel my feet, my legs, my hands, my face...

I am a gazelle, buried amongst the herd, fleeing from a cheetah, willing my way to survival...

And then I was running. Fast. I cut across the crowd of runners to the left side of the road to high-five members of the crowd, marathon junkies, kids, crazies. I threw my fist in the air as a local band did their damnedest to struggle through Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. I breathed easy, kept my cadence quick, realizing that I was well ahead of the pace I'd set out for myself.

I am a camel, built for long travels across barren wastelands, awkward at first glance, but faster than you might imagine, whipped from my life of meandering leisure by a group of crazed Arabs...

Miles 1-5, my knee resisted, trying convince me that this was a bad idea. Why didn't I just hop into the subway and meet everyone at the finish, it whined. I don wanna, I don wanna... In Mile 6, it drew silent. I like to think it came to the conclusion that this wasn't going to end anytime soon and gave up pain for a few steps. Had it any idea this would continue for another twenty miles, I suspect it would have complained longer.

I am a seagull amongst the flock... I run.. I run so far awayayay.... Gotta get away....

The best band in Brooklyn was a Motown-style group outside of a black church at the entrance to Bed-Stuy. A fantastically energetic crowd of people, they danced and clapped and cheered as the mass of churning protoplasm made its way past. Then came the projects. Crickets.

I am a Clydesdale... Muscling Budweiser from one place to a distant other, running through pastures, rivers, nostrils flaring, determined.

I hooked my traincar to Carlos for awhile near Mile 10. Carlos seemed to be a runner of similar ability running for Fred's Team, dressed in relentless violet spandex running gear, with a photograph of a young boy affixed to the back of his shirt with the name "Carlos" written above in black magic. It's unclear to me whether the runner or the boy was Carlos; perhaps we all were Carlos. I decided to be Carlos for awhile, and as fans cheered Carlos on, I pretended they cheered for me as I pressed onward and upward to Queens.

I am the Journey.

Staten

"What am I doing here?"

The thought bounced in my brain a few times before I discarded it as I waited for Tim outside the entrance to the marathon encampment at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. The answers could have been short or long. I was waiting for Tim, as he'd asked me to give him a few carbohydrate gel-packs from my stash before the race. No problem buddy- just show up where you're expected. On a larger scale, I was "preparing" to run 26.2 miles through the five boroughs of New York. "Preparing"by standing around for three hours in 35-degree cold. "Preparing" by munching on Power Bars, bagels, drinking water, coffee, visiting the Port-o-Johns 3, 4, 5 times... "Preparing" by pacing, back and forth, driving myself out of my skull. I swear, between the walk to the subway, then the buses, then off the buses, then through the camp to the other entry, then along the 5 foot patch where I was waiting for Tim, I walked three or four miles leading up to this damned race.

Seriously, though- What am I doing here? Can I do this? On a bum knee? Do I want to do this? Let's weigh the pros and cons:

Pro: $2,800+ raised for a hospital so some poor uninsured sap can get his face reattached after a bar fight Sunday night.

Con: Big whoop. Maybe the penalty for chickening out is doctor-prescribed eye-gouging with a blunt spoon. It's not like I read that legal agreement or anything. And it's not like they know who I am, or where I live.

Pro: Sixteen weeks of training. Time and effort invested.

Con: It's my personal opinion that too many decisions are made based upon sunk costs. If that training has any value, it sure doesn't feel like it.

Pro: Sixteen weeks of talking (and writing) up my experience to all of my family and friends, many of whom also have sunk some cost into this little event. Let's rephrase: Invested in Mark Matuska Futures.

Con: People like me. I'll make new friends.

Pro: No you won't. You're lazy and irritable.

Sigh.

I waited until 8am. No Tim. Sorry buddy. You're out of luck.

Back in the camp, lugging my transparent check-bag along with me (which seemed to enclose about four times as much stuff as anyone else's- guess they pack light), I couldn't take any more. I decided to call my friend Liz, in from Chicago to run her 9th (!) marathon. What about this experience that would make me want to run it nine times, I couldn't tell. I was cold, tired and more than a little lonely. The relief I felt to find her in the coffee line offered a brief respite from my frigid inner monologue. I realized that the words I spoke to her on the phone were the first words I'd uttered since speaking with Tim at 5am. It's good to talk.

We sat for awhile under a tree chatting. Liz and Tim would both be running in Wave 1, and I in Wave 2. The Marathon this year had three starting groups, separated by 20 minutes each in start times, in an experiment to investigate "growing" the race. 39,000 strong apparently isn't enough.

Soon she would be called to her corral. I would have to wait. "You're gonna have a great run, Matusk." she said, smiling. I hoped so. I wished her well in turn, and off she went.

I returned to the staging area, where a rock band was packing up its things after the earliest show they're ever likely to play. I began going through my bag in anticipation of handing it off to the UPS guy that I would meet again after the finish. I changed to my running shoes. I sifted through for my carbo-goo. I pulled out my race number. I shuffled through my pockets for the safety pins to affix it to my shirt.

Panic.

I'd put the pins in my pocket for "safekeeping." I failed to foresee that the pins most certainly were likely to fall through the holes in my mesh shorts. I looked in my check-bag for extras.

One pin. Great.

I dumped my bag at the UPS truck and made my way down to a group of volunteers gathered under a tent and explained my situation. Each looked at the other, until finally the last guy in the circle, either the supervisor or the biggest asshole, or both, replied, "You're screwed."

Thanks, buddy. You've been a big help. How about this idea: I rip off your arms and tie the number to my shirt with your elbow ligaments? Or, alternately, I simply affix the number to my bare chest with your dried blood?

I decided there were more diplomatic options available.

I began asking around to my fellow racers. Happily, my first inquiry, to a group of three that had come with a tent, was met with pleasant smiles and three Marathon-grade safety pins. Whatever your names are, folks, may you receive seventy virgins in the afterlife to do with what you will.

My group was being called to its corral. Go time. I hurried over to the barricades to wait, one last time (or so I thought.) The gun sounded after a few minutes buried in the crowd, and shortly thereafter we began to move. After another shorter while, we passed the entry to Fort Wadsworth, which in future correspondence I may refer to as Auschwitz Staten. As we were definitely, nearly, potentially on the bridge approach, I discarded my trusty Merrill Lynch sweatshirt, which I obtained sometime in college and had kept for no reason whatsoever until this day, on which it served its ultimate purpose amongst the rest of the detritus disposed on the side of the road. The crowd grew more dispersed. The road widened. A few people chose these last moments before crossing the start to take one last urine break over the guardrail or between the buses lined up on our right. I pressed on. The high-pitched tone of the shoe-chip scanners, which I would come to know well over the course of that morning and afternoon, sounded as I crossed the starting line. I was on my way, jogging briskly.

On a normal day, one cannot walk across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge; it's closed to pedestrian traffic. In 1993, 65% of the population of Staten Island voted to secede from New York. I suppose these are but two of the reasons why runners of the New York City Marathon spend roughly twenty steps in Staten Island proper before hitting the bridge to Brooklyn. I know I was pleased to leave it behind. No runners paused to look back upon the start; rather, eyes and cameraphones were fixed across New York Bay to the Manhattan skyline.

"That doesn't look so far," I joked to myself.

I stepped up on the berm on the side of the bridge to pass the lollygaggers. I had stuff to do.

PreGame

The alarm blared. I pried open my eyes. No snooze today.

There were but a few loose ends to be tied. I contemplated the idea of moving out without a shower, but decided to run clean. Best not to tempt fate with a bloody bung, cleanse the crap from the night before. The phone rang, like it should, or would, at 4:54am, trusty Tim, making sure I was awake. I would not hear, from my semi-prone perch in the wildly fluctuating temperatures of my mid-19th century Harlem studio's shower. He'd call again, and I'd answer, all is well, I'm not going back to sleep, no sirree, not this day. I am awake, not ready, but getting there.

It's product placement time: placement on my feet underneath my high-tech socks, placement under my arms beneath my high-tech shirt. Will I use the nipple-guards my cousin was so thoughtful to provide? Nah. Jelly for my tits, jelly for my groin, slather me in goo and add some peanut butter, throw me between some breadsheets and call it a day. I paused for a moment in front of the mirror, naked, slimmer than I've seen my profile in 9 years, bigger but smaller, healthier but more imperiled. "These are the times that... er, try men's souls" said the Sports-Bot, in my hallucinatory ear. Men? I'm still a child.

First: underwear. I wandered to my bureau, or what passes as a bureau, a cheap agglomeration of leftover wood-parts that opens and closes my foldable wardrobe. I'd purchased a number of items for this occasion, ones I was not sure I'd use, or need, or want, but the day of is different than the days before. I must have wanted to be ready. As I stared down into the dresser-drawer, my choices were clear: the Guinness boxer-briefs, the Miller Lites, or the AC/DCs. "For Those About to Rock" remarked the AC/DC briefs, Civil War-era cannons decorating the landscape of the fabric, imploring me that yes, you, Mark, you Are About to Rock, and yes, at the end, We Will Salute You. I pulled them out of the drawer and slid them on, breathing a sigh of relief. The most important decision of the day was past.

The remainder of the decisions had been made the night before. Knee brace- Check. Silk running tights- Check. Asics NYC Marathon Commemorative Running Superterrific Wow Wow Socks- Check. Bright Green Yes I'm A Runner and You Will See me When I'm Running Whether You Like it Or Not Long-Sleeved QuikDri Shirt- Check. Adidas All Day I Dream About Sleeping Hat- Check. Brooks Addiction 7 Running Shoes, Designed specifically for the 200+ pound runner, w/ ChampionChip Government Mind-Control and Race Tracking/Scoring Device Attached- Check. Misnomered Champion overshorts- Check. MP3 Player/ Cell Phone/ Distress Call Armband w/ SOS Beacon- Check. Bag packed with afterclothes- Check. 10 packets carbo-goo- Check.

Running Number 28557, also perhaps my finishing place- Check.

Sense of an impending event, neither inherently positive nor negative, but one that may or may not affect everything else from here on in, depending on the outcome- Check.

I ambled out my door and down the steps of my apartment building, noticing with dismay that the telltale tightness in my knee that had haunted me the final three weeks of my training remained. "No matter to me," I thought. "We're already too deep to worry." I continued on across Central Harlem, the blackly empty streets (save the streetlight mercury-halide orangeglow) eerily silent as I made my way the five crosstown blocks to the 116th Street Barrio 6 Train. As the train pulled into the station, I noticed others carrying the same telltale clear plastic check-bag that I held, identifying them as fellow crusaders. I couldn't muster a word. I sat down in the fluorescently pungent glare of the subway car and thought empty, alone thoughts to Grand Central.

I followed the knowledgeable crowd out of the station and down the predawn vacancy of 42nd Street to the library. Barricades were set along Herald Square, forcing those coming from the east to walk nearly to Sixth Avenue before turning 180 degrees back to Fifth where the buses were parked, a sort of amusement-park ride line to a gas chamber, the same anticipation with none of the payoff. I found a bus, I found a seat, and I begged, pleaded, ached for someone, anyone to sit next to me, say something to me, club me over the head with a tire-iron, anything to remind me that yes, I am at home with the me that is on this adventure. No talkative Samaritan was there to quell my neuroses. I sat in catatonic silence as the bus departed Manhattan, traversed Brooklyn, and chugged over the Verrazano Narrows to Staten Island, where the story would finally begin.

Git 'er done

Coming up the final straightaway... Yes! It's Mark Matuska! With a finishing time of 4:55:13, in 28,837th place! A new personal best! He's got to be pleased with that result!

He is.

Summary thoughts later this week (or early next). Tune in one more time for answers to all your questions, including:

How'd the knee hold up?
Are you going to do this again?
What's going to happen to the blog?
Who's your favorite New Kid?

Until then...

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