Marathon Monday

Last Sunday, thousands of New York City Marathon runners and spectators swelled the city’s population, engaging in one of the most hopeful and strenuous events in the civilized world. A post-marathon Monday always reminds me of lovers walking in the park after their first night together. There is the feeling of possibility, a world on the verge.

Running, in New York City, was not always a spectator sport, unless you count the schoolchildren in my old neighborhood, trying to hold onto their lunch-money by outrunning the bullies. (We were fun to watch, I’m told.)

After the marathon is over, most visitors want to see “the pit.” New Yorkers don’t call it “Ground Zero” any more. It’s “the pit.” The old connotation had too many political undertones. For those who lived through it and continue to live with it, the pit is more accurate and less co-opted by those who would politicize the experience of having your neighborhood blown to smithereens.

A man on Hudson Street recommended the walk down Greenwich Street to a couple of Danish tourists looking for “Ground Zero.” “It’s a pretty walk,” he told them, “and it will lead you right to the pit.” These two opposite poles of human endeavor, the race and the destruction, combine to form a tourist’s itinerary.

On the streets of Manhattan, the runners are easily identified by their medals. It is de rigeur to wear one on Marathon Monday, when sore feet are all around. “Congratulations,” I said, to the first couple I encountered hung with medallions. Surprised, they thanked me.

Perhaps they hadn’t expected such familiarity from a Manhattanite. But familiarity is the rule more than the exception here. How could it not be? With so many different folks living and working close together, familiarity is safety. Courtesy and engagement are hallmarks of real New Yorkers, because nothing is foreign here. A schoolteacher is from Kenya, the coffee man from Pakistan, a housekeeper from Brazil. Differences don’t frighten us, because they are all around us.

Marathoners say New York is like no other in the level of enthusiasm exhibited by its spectators. One described the DC marathon onlookers as appearing to be watching TV, by comparison. A New Yorker said watching the marathon is a great excuse to scream out loud in public without getting arrested.

It goes against logic that watching a herd of people running by in a flash of spandex and nylon would exhilarate us. Running is a stretch of logic itself, but enough has been written of endorphin highs to make its appeal believable. What could drive the hundreds of thousands of people who line the 26-mile route every year on the first Sunday in November?

I think we love the marathon because we are great believers in humanity. Even with the huge hole in our hearts that is the “pit,” New Yorkers believe it will all get better. They believe that people will ultimately find a way to get along in the world because we have learned to get along in New York. We know it is possible.

Side by side in a free society, we bump and grind in our daily lives, celebrate our triumphs and grieve our losses and recognize our shared humanity. When horrible things happen, New Yorkers jump on the pile and dig each other out. We don’t stop to ask if we are digging for Jews or Muslims or Christians or atheists or Unitarians (a plug for Unitarians).

While we root for the front runners, we have a soft spot for the ones who “run” with their hand-powered jog-cycles or the four-hour runners who aren’t there to prove anything to anybody but themselves. New Yorkers can be brought to tears by the sight of the human spirit in fifth gear.

People who live here are here because they have faith in their own ability to go the distance without anybody stopping them. New Yorkers run a marathon every day. They just don’t wear their medals on the outside.

- Cass Collins