The NYC Marathon Was a No-Go, But I Wasn’t!

Today I was supposed to run the NYC Marathon 2012. However, Hurricane Sandy devastated the region including Staten Island, the island where the race begins. After the city’s saying the marathon would go on, on Friday the city and the New York Road Runners reversed and said that the NYC Marathon was canceled.

So, after a quick amount of publicity mostly via Twitter, I ran the NYC Replacement Marathon, a marathon I put together to begin and run in Central Park. Actually, it was more of an ultramarathon if you ran the course I advised. I ran my longest race ever today, running 26.65 miles in 3:38:07 (8:11s). If I go by when I finished 26.2 miles, I ran a marathon in about 3:34 (8:10s).

Here are my results per my Garmin watch:

There are two parts to this story: the organization of it, and the actual race. As for the organization of it, I blogged pretty extensively about it on my news blog, where I put the primary information:

Click here to read the organizational information for the race.
Click here to read the wrap-up for the race.

The wrap-up link contains articles that came out in the Huffington Post and Associated Press, from which the story of the NYC Replacement Marathon was picked up by countless other media outlets. I even had a documentary shot of the experience that is on YouTube, and I did an internet radio interview on the experience. Whoa! Click the wrap-up link to watch and listen.

Here I’ll talk about the race. As we started we knew there would be a lot of runners in the park. However, probably none of us knew just how many would be in the park. So many people, including so many legions of foreigners stuck in town to run the marathon, flooded Central Park and were running in both directions. Basically, there was no room for bikes as runners took up the entire expanse of the roadway.

Very quickly I realized this would be tough, not so much for the large amount of people, but for the lack of runner support. No water stations or Gatorade in particular. I ran with a couple of my NYC Replacement Marathon starters until I could tell they were going to be faster than me and I couldn’t keep up, then I caught them to tell them where the restrooms were and headed off to that building. But then I saw some portajohns and went for them.

After I was done, I was by myself in the mass of people. I ran shirtless with “NYC Replacement Marathon” written in permanent marker on my chest, and that got some verbal attention which motivated me. What demotivated me was finding that quite a few of the park’s water fountains had little pressure or no water at all! There was no way I’d manage this marathon with no water; I knew of just one that worked after having tested it the prior day, but one water fountain would mean a miserable go.

So I used part of my race to chase down water fountains and drink when I got some water from them. As my race went on, lines developed at many of these fountains, which slowed me down a bit. Also what slowed me down — quite a bit — was the finish line area of the park, which was packed with people taking photos and congregating. I passed through that area five times today, and I was brought to a near standstill as I tried to get through the people.

I finished in 3:38, and I wasn’t really sure why I’d run this “race” so slowly. I wasn’t disappointed really — just curious why it took me so long, especially after having run the Atlantic City Marathon two weeks ago in 3:15:14. Here are some factors that I believe figured into my slower time today:

1. I ran 26.65 miles, not 26.2, so the 3:38 is not a marathon time but an ultramarathon time! Remember that, Ben!

2. I had to stop at water fountains to get water rather than run through water stations. This added minutes to my time as I stood in line at times to get what turned out to be only a trickle of water.

3. The finish line area was packed with so many people, sometimes I had to stop or walk to get through the people. I couldn’t maintain a faster pace.

4. I was underhydrated over the course of this race, and had I brought Gatorade, I would probably have been better hydrated and more energized.

5. I stopped for a quick bathroom break once.

6. There were a lot of people in the park running, though I don’t recall that really interfering with my stride or time.

7. I wasn’t really out to PR, and when I realized I wasn’t running superfast, I didn’t push myself to go faster.

8. I ran a 3:15 marathon two weeks prior!

9. The Central Park course of 4 loops plus a lower loop is pretty tough considering!

Those are some of the many factors that went into my race today. Running a 3:38 makes me wonder what I’ll run in Philadelphia. I did four runs between Atlantic City and NYC, and I want to run more than that between now in Philly. However, my body took a bit of a beating today so I don’t know when I’ll want to get back out to run!

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