New York City Marathon - Part I: Before the Start

I had the privilege of taking part in the 2006 New York City Marathon.

One of the special conditions of the NYC marathon is that it starts in Staten Island - so that the marathon can include all 5 boroughs. If you are unfamiliar with New York City, Staten Island is not especially close to Manhattan, or convenient to get to. Also, it is an island (which most people could probably figure out from its name). Because the Verrazano Narrows Bridge closes for the marathon, runners have to get to Staten Island especially early.

At about 4:55am, I leave to walk to the New York City Public Library (to take a bus to Staten Island). Over my running clothes, I'm wearing a heavy shirt and sweatpants. As is often the case in New York in November, it was cold. About 37*F. Every block I walk, I see more and more runners walking to the Library. There's also people on their way to work. And some people who you could tell were drunk and just heading home after a late night. Throngs of people were at the Library, with buses continuously arriving and departing for Staten Island.

I arrive in Staten Island at 6:30am - right at sunrise. It is even colder in Staten Island than it was in Manhattan. The open start time (for non-elite runners) is not until 10:10am.... The marathon "staging area" at Fort Wadsworth was a hub of activity - with people divided into three groups: Blue, Green and Orange, based on your bib color and expected finishing time. There were a lot of international runners. The loudspeaker continuously looped announcements in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese. It felt like being at the United Nations, except without the fighting, name-calling, or discussions about weapons of mass-destruction; and noone was at a podium declaring that someone else had committed human rights violations. We all spent three and a half hours sitting, getting cold, standing around, and eating food, waiting for the start.

Finally, as it gets closer to the start, the sexlingual (isn't "sex" the prefix for when there are 6?) announcements ask runners to get into their places by bib numbers. Everyone sheds their outer-clothes, and puts them into a bag that can be checked and re-claimed at the end of the marathon. As people get crowded together into the starting line, it feels a little warmer, and you can detect the odor of foreign runners from places where deoderant is not yet in style. A number of guys who were unable to make it to the port-o-potties find some relief in the bushes. For men, the whole world is your bathroom.