Liam felt clearheaded and at peace as the starting shot fired and all of the racers jockeyed for position, a tangle of skinny arms and legs knocking into one another. He had hit his stride by the one-mile marker in the middle of the long span of the Verrazano-Narrows. The clock read 7:00, which was good. The first mile of the race went straight uphill, and adrenaline-fueled racers often killed their legs on the initial stretch of this difficult course. The bright sun had busted through the cloud cover, yellowing the shapeless mass of Brooklyn off to Liam's left. He would be running through Bay Ridge and Park Slope and Crown Heights and Williamsburg and Greenpointâall in the first half of the race. He pushed the idea out of his head and kept a steady rhythm as he cut his way through a patch of runners to the first water station, just feet from the turn onto Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue.
Didier was running within a stride of himâsomething Liam had explicitly requested he not doâand they passed a small Dixie cup of water between them. It was an efficient buddy strategy, but Liam knew the many physical and mental hills and valleys he would travel in the almost three hours of marathon running and did not want to have to think about a fellow runner. Even Didier. He moved to the outer edge of the street, hugging a line of shade created by some five-floor tenements. This was the part of the course where Liam knew he had to breathe and move freely, expending no surplus energy. He would need to draw on his reserves starting at the bleak climb through the tunnel of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. But that was still almost eleven miles away.
They hit the four-mile marker at exactly 26:30. Perfection! A long-limbed runner in black and yellow Bobcat gear glided between Didier and Liam and spat over his shoulder. The wad of saliva grazed the side of Liam's face ever so slightly, but he decided to ignore the gesture.
Expend no energy. Expend no energy.
He kept repeating the mantra to himself. Didier had now inched in front of Liam, increasing his speed from about a 6:30 pace to a 6:20 pace. Liam felt his own leg turnover quicken in adjustment and noticed Didier eyeing the gangly spitter who had gotten a few yards ahead.
“No, no, no,” Liam shouted. “Keep it steady, there's a lot of road ahead out there.”
Didier nodded and slowed down so that they were again running stride for stride. A big group of Italian teenagers blasted Stevie Wonder from a boom box on the side of the avenue. Lyrics from “Sir Duke” cascaded through a torrent of applause. The kids were high-fiving runners and handing out wet paper towels and bananas. Someone had once described the marathon experience to Liam as being in your own movie. The training was the dues-paying, and the race was the reward. Novice runners inevitably got caught up in this hoopla during the first 10K of the marathon and flew through the crowds in an effortless wave of excitement. But twenty long miles lurked ahead after the 10K mark and promised to bludgeon runners with the potholes and warped pavement of New York City's merciless terrain. Liam kept his head steady and sipped on some Gatorade as they moved through the 10K mark in 40:42. They were on target for a steady 6:40 pace; Liam relaxed and enjoyed the spectators as they entered Park Slope.
The crowd lessened in volume and in spirit along the stretch of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The pavement thinned from the wide expanse of Fourth Avenue to an uneven knot of road. For the next few miles the marathon toured unsung and relatively unvisited segments of New York City. There was the zigzag through the Polish shops of Greenpoint at mile twelve leading to the halfway point on the Pulaski Bridge, the charmless foot crossing that has the renown of being the only pedestrian bridge connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
The wind had died down by the time they reached the 13.1 mile marker. The less challenging weather conditions reinvigorated Liam. The road hooked sharply to the right as they ran down the Pulaski Bridge into Long Island City. A surprising number of spectators roared with delight, and Liam looked over to Didier and nodded. It was time. They both took a small tube of energy gel from the back pocket of their running shorts, ripped it open with their teeth, and quickly squeezed the contents of the packet into their mouths. Liam tried to gulp the thick Creamsicle-flavored ooze, but it stuck to the sides of his mouth, leaving an unnaturally sweet taste. He hated the energy gels but knew that he needed the quick sugar fix to fuel him for the rest of the run. Every runner used gels differently in a race, strategically positioning two or three of them throughout the course. Liam planned to take just one more, right before the dreaded twenty-mile mark.
As they crisscrossed between the old factories and hip new restaurants of Long Island City, the hulking shell of the Fifth-ninth Street Bridge loomed up ahead. The approach to this monstrosity was as endless as the bridge itself. Every few minutes or so, Liam noticed that Didier would gain a stride or two on him. Didier looked far fresher than Liam now felt; his skinny body was better suited to long-distance running than Liam's thin but more muscular build. The psychological burden of wondering whether he held Didier back was not something Liam wanted to shoulder. He motioned for his friend to pull ahead, but Didier looked befuddled and shook his head “no.”
“Go, just go!” The speaking drained Liam of more energy. The sweat rolling off his brow stung his eyes.
“I'm getting you over that bridge whether you like it or not.”
Didier ran ahead of Liam and grabbed a cup of Gatorade from the fluid station up ahead. The bridge was devoid of anything helpful to runners, except perhaps for the glimmer of Manhattan through its dirty girders. It was well over a mile and a half before the next opportunity to drink anything. Didier forced Liam to take two big gulps from the cup and to stick with him through the ramp leading up the bridge. Liam's calves cramped and a vise-like shock clamped down on the center of his back. He knew that he had trained well enough to collect himself and focus better on keeping his pace. But he let himself escape for just a few moments and thought of the wonderfulness of home, of being in the shower, and of lying on the bed watching the trees throw patterns on the neighboring tenements.
“C'mon, we're hitting the downhill. C'mon, this is where we're picking up the pace.” Didier did not shout. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that announced that this was what must be. And Liam told himself that, at least at this juncture, following along with someone required far less of him than falling apart on his own. Liam gave himself over to Didier, and he believed that he was in quite good hands. His running form returned. The energy gel began to kick in as the swell of spectators along First Avenue announced the runners' entrance to Manhattan with a deafening thump. Everything looked up now, but Liam knew what was to come. This high feeling never lasted. No matter what the physical terrain, the marathon unfurls in 26.2 miles of hills and valleys.
As they passed Ninety-sixth Street, Liam noticed another yellow and black singlet coming up alongside Didier. The muscular man had a short but confident stride and clearly picked up his pace to make a commanding statement to the two Fast Trackers. Didier stole a look of disgust. Liam had no idea how many Fast Trackers were in front of him or behind him at this point. He figured that Zane and maybe Marvin were somewhere ahead of him, but barring divine intervention that would be all. And here was another Bobcat passing. Who knew how many were so far ahead that Liam had never even laid eyes on them? He couldn't hold back Didier. Even if the only thing gained was that some of Didier's old team members knew he had not lost his racing edge, that simple fact would be good enough for Liam. A true racer brought his soul out on the course, and it would be unconscionable for him to deny his training, his body, and his essence.
Liam looked ahead and pointed to the Bobcat who now ran a few feet ahead of them. When Liam caught Didier's eye, he nodded. Didier smiled and did not say a word as he went ahead alone. The nineteen-mile mark was within a block, and Liam felt more fortified than he had all day. Within a few minutes, Didier had made it far enough ahead to be beyond view, and Liam started to lose concentration. To focus amid the thinning crowds of Upper First Avenue, Liam found an object at close distance, a bodega on the corner and then a jalopy parked ahead on the side of the road, and counted how many steps it took to reach it. Knowing that he couldn't allow his form to break down, Liam concentrated on the straightness of his back, the rhythm of his stride, and on keeping the equilibrium of his breathing steady and unstrained.
The dreaded Willis Avenue Bridge then presented him with another uphill. The climb was worsened by the aching throb of his feet against the metal grates of the bridge, which was covered ineffectively by a flimsy red mat. Liam stared down at the murky water beneath him, following it toward the silvery mud on the shorelines across the bridge. When he looked at the clock at the end of the bridgeâthe twenty-mile mark where runners famously hit the wallâit read exactly 2:15. Liam had just under forty-five minutes to complete the final 10K. Given a fresh start, he usually clocked about thirty-seven minutes for a 10K. What his body could do after running through twenty miles of uneven city streets was a different story. Liam tried not to get too far ahead of himself in calculating the mile splits needed to assure a sub-three-hour finish time. It felt so reachable and so easy. But a successful marathon is not about the easy or the safe. It's about the unknown, and it's about discipline. It's about the preservation of faith. As he watched runner after runner who had been ahead of him on the race course succumb to the pants and cramps of exhaustion, Liam reminded himself that nothing could be taken for granted. Nothing was in the bag.
A makeshift crew of rowdy teenagers break-danced to a surging remix of “Thriller” as the marathon course wound its way back into Manhattan. Liam tried not to think about how many street signs would pass by before he entered Central Park for the final two miles of the race.
It's just mental. Your body is trained ... Let your head do the rest.
He raked his brain for any inspirational thought that might be available. The sun fell into his eyes. It was 129th Street. Seventy more blocks to Central Park South.
Stop that! You just need to keep your head in this for the next half hour.
Liam watched the shoulder blades of a taut man in an “Italy” singlet as he raced around Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and then, after passing that runner, high-fived a gray-haired black woman singing in the Hallelujah Choir outside a church on 117th Street. Everything hurt at this point. His feet burned with the blisters between his toes, and the stabbing pain in his lower back came and went every few blocks. Distractions could occupy him for no more than seconds at a time. The twenty-fourth mile of the race, the one following the long upgrade through Museum Mile before Fifth Avenue deposited runners into Central Park at Engineers' Gate, proved the most difficult.
Liam had the slight boost of knowing that just inside the park, right behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fast Trackers had their water station. He refused to look fatigued for his teammates. When he arrived, the huge masses of people looked like a liquid wave moving in and out of focus. The jumble of empty water cups and the outstretched arms of his team members became an instant blur. He could not pinpoint one specific face, even as he heard scores of people shouting his name. What had lifted his spirit for about half a mile had gone by in about twenty steps and now two more miles of New York City came between him and his goal. From somewhere deep within he culled the resources to quicken his foot turnover and to move his arms faster. He had read once in a sports magazine that if you pumped your arms faster, then your legs would pick up the pace as well.
And then it happened. He could not believe his eyes. Zane was slumped over at the top of Cat Hill, just a few hundred yards beyond the Fast Tracker water depot. He was rubbing the tops of his thighs and whimpering in pain.
“Run with me, Zane!” Liam shouted out.
Zane looked up halfheartedly and shook his head no. He tried to shoo Liam on with a quick wave of his hand. Liam refused to leave his friend behind. After the months of training as a team, Zane needed to finish this race and to finish it with strength and grace.
“You can finish. It's less than two miles, Zane. I am getting you through this.”
Zane was not moving, so Liam had to walk over to him. As soon as he stopped running, Liam felt a cramping through his legs. His feet were on fire.
“I'm not leaving you here. And you're not causing me to sacrifice my sub-three-hour marathon. So get a move on.”
Liam took Zane by the elbow and started to jog. They were jogging very slowly at first, barely faster than Liam could walk, but before they reached the bottom of Central Park they had picked it up to about a 7:30 pace. The race clock at the twenty-five-mile mark, just before runners exit the park and make their way onto Central Park South, read just over 2:51. They had just under nine minutes to complete 1.2 miles. Now Liam did all sorts of mathematical computations. A 7-minute mile pace would be fine but not an 8-minute mile pace. He could feel his heart pounding.
“C'mon!” Coaching Zane through the last bit of the race was taking his mind off the myriad aches and pains of his own body.
“Just focus on Columbus Circle. Just keep your eyes up there, Zane!”
The crowd thundered with applause along Central Park South. It rivaled First Avenue for the volume and enthusiasm of its spectators. A sign along the road said there were 800 metersâone half of a mileâto go. Liam glanced at his watch. It read 2:56:15. Liam could not figure out exactly what pace they needed to run or at what pace they might currently be going, but he knew he was not going to chance it.