My NYC Twenty-Six Point Two

About two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy lambasted her way through the east coast of America, and left behind scars that will have impacted thousands, in ways most of us will hopefully never have to experience.

Because of the damage the storm caused in New York, particularly downtown and on Staten Island, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the ING 2012 NYC Marathon would not be taking place as planned. I will be the first person to say that I completely agree with the reasons for this decision - When people have been left homeless after their houses have literally been blown away, there is no hesitation in my mind that any attention, support and relief efforts available should all be focused on where help is needed most. I do however think the media, in its typical fashion (Fox, my finger's pointing in your direction), painted a more negative picture than was necessary. I mean this in terms of how marathon organisers NYRR (New York Road Runners) were portrayed in the days before the cancellation of the marathon. Generators were originally being used by NYRR (as they are every year) to power entertainment stages / toilet stations etc. along the course route. NYRR came under a huge amount of scrutiny for this, as some reporting on the storm depicted it as wreckless and inconsiderate planning - casting a view that the same generators being used to support a city event, could be better used to provide power/heat to those in areas most affected by Sandy.

This was not an accurate picture, at all. As soon as NYRR realised the devastation caused by the storm, particularly in the areas along the run route, they immediately made the decision to cancel, and offered up all and any support they could to their wounded community. 

When I found out about the cancellation, I was pretty devastated. I won't deny that it was a hard pill to swallow - I don't think I have dedicated myself to something in the way that I have this past year, for both training for the run, and raising money for our charity, the IDEAL School. But it felt wrong being angry about it. OK, so the marathon wasn't going ahead and that was shit, but I was healthy and well, as were my family and friends. My "America Grandparents" live right on the coast of New Jersey Shore, and unfortunately their house and virtually everything in it had been destroyed by Sandy, but they were safe.

In the hour or so after Bloomberg's announcement, I had pretty much made a decision in my little round head, that be it official or otherwise, I was going to do a 26.2mile run before we left New York. I didn't want it to be a spiteful thing, I didn't want to come across as if I wasn't seeing the bigger picture. I did, with my own eyes. I saw some of the destruction in lower Manhattan, and I saw how neighbourhoods were coming together on street corners to pool any donations of food, clothes and other things for people effected in adjacent boroughs and cities. But we had a goal in our sights, that had been there for close to a year - to run a marathon in New York in aid of our chosen charity, The IDEAL School. It is a very uniquely ran facility originally founded by my aunt and uncle in New York City, which caters for children with and without learning disabilities, all under one roof. 

I talked to my uncle John - who I was due to do the marathon with along with my cousin Aoife - about wanting to go ahead with a run, and we both agreed we still felt we had to do something to honor the very generous donations we had received. 

My champion of a mother, who had travelled all the way from Dublin, with my bestest sister, was 100% behind me from the moment we made the decision. Well, I really should mention, she was 100% behind me from the day I got my place in the Marathon back in February. In fact, the week after I got the news she booked flights for herself and my sister to come along for support AND went and paid for my flight as a "well done for doing this", gift. Legend. Love you mum.

So, we came up with a DIY Manhattan-based course that went from the upper west side to the southern tip of Manhattan and back again, into Central Park for two loops of the perimeter road ending at 81^st and Central Park West. Sunday, the original day for the official Marathon, was a perfect day for running - Dry, no wind, sunny and cool. 

My lovely sis sorting the marathon do out... quite important when you have as much hair knocking about as I do

Woke up at about 7.30am, unaware that it was actually 8.30am with the time-change. We chowed down some brekkie - good aul Flahavan's porridge (Thank you Zabars!), bananas and honey - sorted out the running playlist (80's whipper tunes galor), did a bit of stretching and light-walking to loosen up, and set out at about 11.30am. Yep, by this time we'd figured out the timing miscalculation.... Extra time for my sister to sort my out of control hair out.

We were incredibly lucky to have "the man, the legend" - photographer/biker support/phone coordinator extrordinaire, Mr Gary Murphy, on the mountain bike with Gatorade, gel, gloves, iPods, bagels, bananas and more encouragement than either of us ever anticipated could fit in a backpack...

Here's the route we took -

  

26.6... to be exact ;-)

When we set off, we knew that while we were planning on a full marathon distance run, it wasn't going to be the same as the real deal. There would be no big crowd cheering us on from beginning to end, no water/toilet facilities, no blocked roads or controlled traffic flow. The first half was much like any of the long runs I had been doing as part of my training, with the exception of it being with my awesome uncle, in my favorite city in the world, with a slightly busier running route than i'd become accustomed to - there were a LOT of runners out doing what i'd guess to be the very same thing we were. 

Heading south...

I don't think either of us were prepared for what was to come when we hit Central Park for the second half of the run. The official Marathon may not have gone ahead that day, but what took its place was something truly surreal, something we will always remember as a completely unique and special experience. 

Part of the route for the official run, which loops the internal perimeter of Central Park, was packed to the gills with fellow runners, much more so than the route we had taken for the first 14-15 miles. You'll see in the pictures that I am wearing a bright orange running vest - this was given to all runners at the registration expo before the run was cancelled. I wasn't going to run in it as I had my kit all picked out, but under the circumstances I thought it'd be nice to fly the flag for the event. When we entered into central park we were met with a sea of orange! Hundreds (probably more like thousands over the course of the day) were out making their unofficial marathon mark, just like us. Along with the runners themselves, were their support teams rallying along the edge of the running track with flags and banners - cheering their own along with everyone else running by, like their lives depended on it.... 

Cheers dahlin'
 

... And along with those support teams, were a whole host of local New Yorkers, out in force, lining the roads to motivate everyone running by. People were passing out bottled water, bananas and energy bars, and kids were handing out sweets (I probably consumed more of those "for energy" than was really necessary). 

Just when I felt like I was nearing the dreaded "Wall", i'd get a massive burst of energy, from seeing total randomers holding up the most adorable signs, emblazoned with quotes like "NY welcomes you- We're all in this together", and "Run like its the real thing and we'll cheer like its the real thing", and "Run like you're a politician" (Presidential election day was taking place on November 5th). I don't think i've ever gotten so many high-fives in such a short space of time in all my days - Token Americana deadliness. I have no doubt the presence of these awesome strangers, along with some of our amazing family and friends, contributed to us being able to keep smiles on our faces right through to the very end.

Now, I must mention that even though my champ uncle is "a few" years my senior, it was his energy and banter that had me laughing my way up the final few hellish hills on mile 25/26. The guy made it look easy. He is someone I already admire and look up to a lot for many reasons, and this just reaffirms his awesomeness.  

Mile 23... Feeling it!

We were using John's GPS to navigate our route, and keep track of our distance. Needless to say, the number one goal was to ensure we actually ran 26.2 miles. Toward the end, John realised that the GPS has stopped tracking us for a small portion of our run so far - about a mile and a half or so (I think), so being the hero he was, whilst running - and bear in mind this was about 23 miles into a killer run that needed a certain pace to be maintained  - John figured out the appropriate distance we needed to go, to 100% ensure we covered at least 26.2miles. 

DONE!

We had passed the family/friends support team back at mile 21 in the park but much to our surprise, there they were again, about a dozen of them, waiting to greet us at our finish line. Heroes.

That was that. We had completed a 26.6 mile run, in a pinch over 4.00 hours.

So, yes, the official NYC Marathon didn't go ahead. But what happened in its place, was something few people will ever get to experience - An unofficial, inpromptu marathon, an incredibly resilient community coming together to make the most out of a very unfortunate situation, a pretty awesome demonstration of determination.

I raised over 5.5K for the IDEAL School to date (a Massive Thank You to my amazing Papa Bear, Kevin Fennelly, for being an energiser bunny of a campaign manager back on the homeland - I wouldn't have raised this much money without his support and dedication).

New York City stole my heart a long old time ago, and every single time I visit, the crush gets bigger. This time was no exception.

11 months 2 weeks to go until next year, when we make it official :-)

B