Closing Shot: Pushing through the New York Marathon

Standing amid thousands of other runners lined up at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on the morning of Nov. 3, I ticked through the arsenal I thought would get me through the TCS New York City Marathon.

A training block built entirely through a foot injury and over more than five months of preparation for a grueling course. An ambition to go for a marathon for the first time in six years and check off a bucket-list race. And a playlist of my favorite Taylor Swift songs to motivate me through the streets of New York.

In the end, none of those alone got me through some painful final miles. New Yorkers did.

The city’s famed crowds delivered beyond anything I had expected. Anyone I knew who had run that race — including LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover and Aggregate Sports Senior Vice President Ramsey Baker — had filled me in on the wall of sound at mile 16 when you finally enter Manhattan. Yet I still wasn’t prepared for the boost you can get from spectators six deep on either side, cheering and singing, yelling and dancing.

It was quite different than the quiet start in Staten Island that kicked off our five-borough tour. Around mile five, in Brooklyn, I sang along to the band playing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” I high-fived countless kids, and I let out a few “Go Bills!” to fellow fans.

Knowing I wouldn’t PR took some pressure off and allowed me to soak in the race rather than watch my pace. I had done my entire training despite having dealt with plantar fasciitis in my right foot (a problem that dates back years), and had gone through several pairs of new shoes, new orthotics, three steroid injections and more than a year of PT, plus weekly dry needling. 

Through Brooklyn, raucous spectators pushed a record 55,646 runners along — with music, with water, with cheers. Their signs reminded runners that we chose this, that all toenails go to heaven and that we run the city better than any number of things, including the mayor, the MTA and the rats.

In Queens, my foot rebelled, each step causing shooting pain. Nausea and cramping kept me from being able to continue fueling, the nutrition plan crookedly scrawled down my forearm quickly becoming irrelevant.

For a while, I faked my way through it. Buoyed by the noise that greeted us off the Queensboro Bridge, I entered Manhattan and pushed my way up 1st Avenue, stopped briefly to see my family and tried to carry on.

With six miles to go, the crowd in the Bronx was boogying down, but I was just down. By the time I crossed back into Manhattan, I contemplated not finishing. I nearly did, but instead leaned on my heretofore endless supply of stubbornness.

And that NYC crowd.

Following the popular wisdom, I had put my name on a piece of KT Tape on the front and back of my shirt. Dozens, hundreds, thousands — I don’t know, it was a blur — shouted for me to keep going, that I was doing a great job (when I merely was trying to put one foot in front of the other).

Several runners patted me on the shoulder, telling me I got this (when I definitely didn’t feel like it). 

As I rounded the final half-mile into Central Park, a spectator held up a sign: “Run with your heart, and your feet will follow.”

Both had faltered for me on a day far more painful than I had planned. But that beautiful city and its celebration of running became the final pieces that helped me become a NYC Marathon finisher.