Damn, Sandy, you’re a real bitch! I didn’t realize it at
first, but now I see loud and clear the damage you’ve done and the pain you’ve
caused. Fuck you and your annoying Nor’easter girlfriend, Athena.
I wrote my previous post on Thursday of last week early in the
morning, a couple days after Sandy’s landfall. At that time, I knew that she had done a
significant amount of damage, primarily on the coastal areas of New Jersey,
Long Island and Staten Island but I didn’t fully understand the severity of it.
My world, given there’s no public transportation, which there wasn’t, consists of
a 5-mile radius of Brooklyn, and it seemed to be unaffected in a way. Our public parks and schools were closed, some
services, like Fresh Direct were suspended, and fallen trees and debris were on the
sidewalks, but that was about it.
At some point later that day, I stumbled upon a Facebook
page “Cancel the NYC Marathon”. It had
50,000 “likes”. My heart sank.
Mayor Bloomberg announced the previous night, Wednesday, that the
marathon would go on as scheduled, unite the city and help get us back up and
running again. At that time, I agreed with and was relieved with that
decision. I thought there was no way
they would cancel it, but I also thought, there would be no reason to, either. I thought the city would be well on it’s way
back to normal by Sunday. I was so wrong. Bloomberg was so wrong.
All day Friday, I stayed glued to media coverage, Facebook,
Twitter, the NYC ING Marathon website.
The more informed I became, the more I knew that it needed to be
cancelled or postponed. It seemed, that
no one wanted this race to be run. Who want’s to run the NYC marathon without
the city cheering you on, or even worse, booing at you? Who wants get bussed to
Staten Island, the race start, to shed excess running gear onto the ground
while people in that very community have no heat, hot water, or expendable
money to buy warmer clothes? Who wants to
use up resources like food, water and medical supplies for an athletic event,
when others need it survival? No one. The cries to cancel the event grew louder
and louder and late Friday afternoon I saw a post on Facebook announcing just
that; NYC Marathon is cancelled. I confirmed it on NBC 4 News for New York and
Twitter lit up simultaneously. Shortly
after Jeff and I received e-mails for New York Road Runners, the organizing
foundation.
As much as I knew it had to be done, and agreed that it
should be cancelled. I couldn’t believe it.
I was sad. I was in shock. I was
relieved. I called my Mom and Sister,
shared the news and told them not to come to the city, as scheduled. Jeff and I
needed to let it sink in and think about what we were going to do next. We did so, over a bottle of wine and sushi.
I read that some marathoners were going to spend their
time volunteering on Staten Island and that others were going to run a marathon
in Central Park on Sunday, what was to be the race day. Neither of those options seemed appealing to us. We decided to shift gears alltogether and go to the Bronx
Zoo. Animals always make people
feel better, we’ve been talking about going for a while, and now we had an
opportunity. Unfortunately, there were hardly
any exhibits open, and the ones that were featured sleeping animals. Too make matters worse; it was a perfect day
for a run, 50 degrees, light breeze, and clear skies.
Fennec Fox - The smallest fox. We found it in the zoo Mouse House. |
After we returned home from the zoo, had dinner and put
Colette to bed we started researching other fall marathons that we might be
able to run. Sarasota, Jacksonville,
Charlotte, Harrisburg, Palm Beach…. the lame list of cities I have no connecton to went on and on. Logistically, emotionally
and financially nothing made sense. We
wanted to run a marathon in our city, not any city. Then, I suggested that we could just run 26.2
miles on our own, together this weekend, in the city. Jeff seemed on board, but not thrilled with
the idea. As this weekend neared, Jeff
questioned me on why we needed to do this.
Was it to prove it to ourselves? We knew we could do it. Was it to prove
it to others? No one cares whether we do or don’t run. To have fun? It’s not
fun. The more I thought about it, the more
it became clear that running a self-created marathon seemed more like
punishment than a reward. So, we nixed
that idea. But still, I felt the need to have some closure around this marathon.
Today Jeff, Colette and I are going to run a celebratory 3-mile
loop around our beloved Prospect Park. We will acknowledge the dedication and
commitment we put into our training, mourn the loss of a great experience that
never was and move on to creating the next one.
Manchester Road Race, here we come!
PS – The aftermath of hurricane Sandy is unreal. I am blown away by how severely some areas
have been impacted. It will take years to recover. We’ve donated money, supplies, volunteer time
and the opportunities to do more are never-ending. If you want to contribute in
some way, but don’t know what to do, let me know and I can point you in the
right direction.
Volunteering in Rockaway |
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