An American wins the New York City Marathon!

Here are a just few pictures from today's New York City Marathon. Meb Keflezighi became the first American to win the New York City Marathon since Alberto Salazar in 1982. And the Americans did very well overall this year, taking six of the top ten men's places, and four of the top ten women's places.

Robert Cheruiyot and Meb Keflezighi on Fifth Avenue in Spanish Harlem, just before mile 23. Cheruiyot is still ahead, but Meb is right behind him! (You can enlarge any of these photos by clicking on them.)

Ryan Hall is in fifth place here, but he finished fourth. (I put this photo in just for you, Susan!)

The lead women, including Paula Radcliffe, Christelle Daunay, Ludmilla Petrova, and eventual winner Derartu Tulu. (Paula Radcliffe sustained an injury during the race.)

A couple of our own local heroes. Bob and his friend David engaged in a bit of banditry by jumping in for four miles with their friend Roberto.

This was the first time in ten years that Bob hasn't run in the marathon, so although he got to see the lead runners for once, we could tell he missed it. I think he and David are already making their training plans for next year!

And just for fun, here's Mayor Mike Bloomberg's limousine. Bloomberg is behind the second windshield, so you can't really see him. A bit of campaigning, perhaps? The mayoral election is Tuesday.

Marathon Day

Paula Radcliffe leads the women's pack on First Avenue

Today was Bob's tenth consecutive New York City Marathon.  He said during all the days leading up to it that it would be his last, but we'll see about that.  At any rate, he's 46 and has been recovering from an injury and a cold, so he didn't expect too much, certainly not anything close to his P.R. (in Boston, two years ago) of 3:13:17.  It was supposed to be more of a celebratory parade.

The time change certainly helped!  This year was the first with a wave start, and Bob started in the first of three groups at 9:40 a.m.  We were up at 4:45, new time, and he was off to Staten Island by 6:15, accompanied by two neighbors who were also running today.  C.Z. and I left at about 10 a.m., laden with bananas, Power Gel (an energy substance of sorts), a camera, and printouts on all the featured elite runners.  We were accompanied by one of Bob's training partners, David, who was too injured to train this year and planned to jump into the race to encourage Bob between those dreaded miles 19-23.  Sometimes we have quite a cheering contingent, but Bob's sister didn't make it up this year, a couple of the regulars were out of town, and one couple simply never found us. 

 

We arrived at 115th on First Avenue (at mile 19) just in time to get settled and watch some wheelchair racers before the lead women ran by (they start before the men).  When we saw them, there was last year's (and 2004's) winner Paula Radcliffe out in front, followed by Ludmila Petrova (40-year-old winner from 2000), Dire Tune, Gete Wami, and first-time marathoner Kara Goucher.  Before long, the lead men showed up--2006 winner Marilson Gomes Dos Santos, Abderrahim Gourmi, and 2005 winner Paul Tergat.  Then came one of my favorite parts of the race--the invited runners who aren't famous, and the local elites.  These runners are extremely talented and train very hard, but will likely never win prize money or become famous.  We stood at our post until Bob came by, and while we waited, we clapped, yelled out the names (or countries) written on the runners' shirts, and generally tried to be encouraging. 

Bob runs over for a Power Gel on First Avenue

Bob came by right at the time he predicted, C.Z. handed him a Power Gel, David jumped into the race, we picked up David's backpack and Bob's shed gloves, and we scooted over to Fifth Avenue at 105th (a.k.a. mile 23). It never seems like we have much time to spare, yet by that time Bob has already taken a tour of the Bronx.  I always enjoy this part of the course because of the beautiful golden leaves at the Conservatory Garden, yet it's not much fun for the runners, who are running perilously close to empty by this time.  They're also running slightly uphill--and yes, slightly counts!

Bob and David on Fifth Avenue

David jumped back out of the race, we crossed the avenue, took a nice brisk walk through a relatively empty Central Park, and arrived at the finish area near the Museum of Natural History just as Bob was finishing.  We had to wait a while for him, though, because it takes a while for runners to get through the corral, pick up their baggage and medals, and walk back to the family waiting area. By this time we had heard about Paula Radcliffe's win, and were starting to see shiny mylar-blanket-wrapped people walking stiffly along the streets, proudly escorted by family members. Bob soon joined them, and C.Z. pushed the time button on his watch to reveal a 3:28:33, which was slightly slower than his typical NYC Marathon efforts but is certainly a respectable retirement run under the circumstances!

Yea!  He's finished!  10th NYC Marathon and 19th marathon finish overall.

Meanwhile, C.Z. and I have noted that our part of the race, known affectionately as the Spectator Marathon, seems to get easier each year.  After all, she is at least able to keep up with the crowd now.  The first year Bob ran, when C.Z. was five, she fell asleep in my lap at the finish, and the second year, we got off in our timing and never saw Bob in the race.  We've now found just the right places to wait, just the right routes to take back and forth, the right clothes to wear (this year was cold) and just the right pre- and post-marathon foods.  We think we're a pretty good support team.

Two humorous sights we saw today:  An Absolute Bagels delivery man, 30 blocks from our neighborhood store, delivering to the finish line, and a marathon finisher, wrapped in foil and calling home on his cellphone, while riding down a side street in a bicycle rickshaw (pedicab).

We caught the subway up to Henry's, our traditional post-marathon brunch spot, albeit at 2 p.m.  Of course, there was a bit of race-dissecting to do, pancakes to be eaten, and congratulations to be enjoyed.  Back at home, after some race highlights on TV and looking up some friends' finishing times on the marathon website, it was time for the long, long soak.  There will be some more discussion, no doubt, but the New York City Marathon is over for another year.  Is Bob's New York City Marathon streak over for good?  Stay tuned!  Somehow I think he'll want to give it another go--once he recovers.

Fifth Avenue Mile

Yesterday after church our family scooted across the park to watch our seventh straight Fifth Avenue Mile.  It's one of our favorite races.  People from 8 to 98 run down this famous street, from the Metropolitan Museum to the Plaza Hotel, according to age group and gender.  Times range from men's pro winner Nick Willis's 3:50.5 to almost-centenarian Abe Weintraub's 22:10.  There are local elites, Achilles runners, those fast kids from Team Rabbits USA, and plenty of ordinary recreational runners.  The weather is typically gorgeous.

C.Z. was the first member of our own family to run in this race.  I think she was "officially" eight, although in reality, she wasn't quite seven.  (They just group you with the eight-year-olds until you're old enough.)  She ran it from 2001 until 2006 and then retired.  Bob has officially run it twice, not counting the first couple of years that he ran down the sidewalk after C.Z. so that she wouldn't have to be alone at the finish line.  Various visiting friends and family have run the race, too, including one of my nieces and Susan L.'s daughter Melissa.  And we almost always know some local friends in the race, from neighbor kids to Bob's training partners to his co-worker Judith Tripp, who won her age group yesterday.

One of my favorite heats in this race is the 70+ group.  Plenty of these men and women could still beat me any day.  Who knows what I'll be doing at 70, but I hope I can at least still manage a fast walk, if not a bit of a run!  So, they're inspiring to me--the kid who, at five, asked my parents if grownups could run, because I'd never seen any do so. 

But of course, for sheer elegance, it's pretty hard to beat the pro race.  I love watching the elites glide uptown for the start in their warm ups, then glide back down faster than any human should be able to run.  Yesterday, shortly after most of the men had already headed up for their start, I was chatting with friends and out of the corner of my eye, caught sight a lone runner jogging leisurely up the avenue.  He was about to pass by about a foot in front of me when I suddenly realized that he wore the perpetually pleased expression of Bernard Lagat.  Nick Willis edged him out by one tenth of a second in the end, but he's still a favorite of ours from all those Wanamaker Miles.  Bob saw him posing for photos at the end of the race and leaned into the crowd to shake his hand.  This is about as close as our family gets to celebrity worship. 

(And Susan, Nick Symmonds was there, too!) 

The New York Road Runners Club, who organizes this race, has a nice overall write up, and some great photos.  Meanwhile, I'll post my own personal favorite Fifth Avenue Mile photo, from 2006, when Bob caught an unexpected glance of Flat Stanley while on his way to a respectable 5:14 in the men's 40-45 heat.  

NYC Half-Marathon

Here's the Times Square entrance to our friendly neighborhood 1 train.

This has been a busy week.  Now and then I'd sit down to post something, but it would never get finished.  So, now I'm going to take the easy way out and post photos instead.  

Bob ran the NYC Half-Marathon this morning.  He would say he didn't run it, he jogged it.  The weather was his least favorite--hot and humid, post thunderstorm.  Still, it was fun running through the streets of Manhattan: Starting in Central Park and looping around, then out the bottom of the park near Columbus Circle, through Times Square, and on down to Battery Park City.  

As I got up at 4:45 to fix the usual pre-run breakfast, thunder and lightning were echoing through the open windows that faced the air shaft in the kitchen.  C.Z. and I left at 6:30, waited fifteen minutes (practically forever in NYC time) for a train, and then shared our slowly crawling car with a panhandler who was so very aggressive that I almost got off the train.  (I'm used to ignoring a lot, but when a seemingly crazy guy starts talking about how he feels like killing someone, I take that seriously.)  Luckily, he left before I had to make the decision.  

We got to Central Park barely in time to see the front runners go by.  We didn't think waiting for the weekend train again was a good bet, to we left right away and walked to Times Square.

New York City's finest watching the race.  Don't you just love how their precinct matches the local decor?

There we passed the noisy cover band and found a perfect spot right at the turn, just behind a TV camera so that no one could block our view.  Since the runners were doing the loop, we had enough time to get our bearings before we saw the helicopters and heard the sirens again.  I didn't recognize the leader, but I did recognize Dathan Ritzenheim (whom we saw recently at the Olympic Trials in Eugene) in about third place.  (I say "about" because when I'm taking photos, sometimes I lose track of the exact place.) 

Leaders Tadesse Tola and Patrick Makau about to make the turn onto 42nd St. at Times Square

We knew we couldn't make it to Battery Park in time to see the finish, so we did the best we could, which was to take and express train to the 12 mile mark near Stuyvesant High School in time to see the women's leaders go by.  Catherine Ndereba looked like she was going to win this one.

Catherine Ndereba has a reasonable lead at the 12mi mark on the West Side highway.

After the lead women passed by, we walked around the old World Trade Center site to the finish, which was more of a madhouse than most local races.  I later found out that that was because there were 10,000 entrants.  You know you're not in the usual running crowd when you see women in high heeled shoes!  Oddly enough, however, we found an empty spot on the bleachers at the finish line and were able to watch Bob finish from there.  (As he made clear, he just wanted to run through the closed streets and didn't consider himself to be racing, so I'll spare you the details.)  I like downtown; it's not on the grid. 

Half-marathon finishers at Battery Park.  The dark streak is because I took this photo through wire on a pedestrian bridge.

C.Z. and I were actually in time to hop off the train at 66th St. and slip into church just in time for the sermon.  Afterwards we went to brunch with Bob and his running friend Ethan.  So, it's just after noon and we feel we've already had a full day!  But I'm looking forward to a quiet afternoon with The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann before calling the day complete. 

Oregon trip

The photo above is of Mt. St. Helen’s, in Washington, but I’m not a stickler for categories.  It was a lovely trip, and the hike we took down the side of Johnston Ridge (named for a geologist who died in the eruption) facing Mt. St. Helen’s was one of my favorite parts.  Susan and I fancied that the bottom of the trail would be an excellent place to build homesteads, except for two small inconveniences--cougars and the fact that we were in a volcanic disaster zone.  

In retrospect, what appealed about the hike were friendship, and the beauty that can grow out of disaster.  Blasted tree stumps are ringed with alpine flowers along the top of the ridge.  Down below, a delicate layer of moss is beginning to anchor the ash hummocks, just before you wander into a grove of slender trees with silver trunks and quivering leaves.  The trail was narrow and slippery in my old running shoes, and we also noted large animal paw-prints and scat all along it (Bob saw a coyote, but some prints were much larger).  But truthfully, there wasn’t so much difficulty in the hike as reminders of it.  I sometimes think the best memories arise almost because they are a combination of difficulty and hope, not in spite of difficulty.  Just getting out of a car and snapping a photo wouldn’t have had the same feeling at all. (Though I’ll be glad enough to do it when I’m old.  It will be difficult then!)

Another prominent aspect of our trip was the waterfalls. They were everywhere! This is partly because part of the time we were hiking in the Columbia River Gorge. The waterfall above (Tunnel Falls--thanks, Susan!) was at the end of a six+ mile trail, which, of course, we hiked back down. It must have been nine or ten stories high, but I chose this photo because I like the way the moss is growing along the volcanic basalt columns in the basin below. Some members of our party scooted down the ridge (not on the side in the photo!) and had a closer look at the basin. The water shot up from it in huge arcs.

We liked the inns, too. Of course, Susan’s house has long been one of my favorite places, but I also mean the bed and breakfast inns, some of which felt more like staying in someone’s home than in a hotel. One of them was practically deserted at night, with the new owner away, so we commandeered the large wood-beamed living room, kitchen and laundry room (we had reached a state of laundry emergency) to run out the camera battery with...whatever. Susan and I embarrassed the night clerk mightily by folding some of the hotel’s sheets, which we found out because Bob heard her muttering to herself in the empty living room. It reminded me more of youthful late night kitchen raids with the cousins at Bob’s parents’ house than a hotel stay. And the breakfasts were delicious and filling, which was a good thing, because we almost never ate lunch. We were too busy having fun!

And then there was Eugene, where we stayed with more of Susan’s family. For the sake of anonymity I will not divulge logistical details, but I admire the flexibility and good humor of everyone involved, including Susan’s parents. A group of kids ranging in age from about seven to forty-five (that would be Bob) played badminton for practically two days straight. Acrobatic things happened. Clumsy things happened. Strange animal noises happened. Three rackets got stuck in the tree at once.

We ran or walked en masse in the Butte to Butte race on July 4th. We went to the Olympic Trials and yelled ourselves hoarse when high school junior Jordan Hasay and U of O’s own Galen Rupp ran better than expected. We ate Yumm! bowls, blueberry burgers and ice cream, and drank good coffee everywhere we went. And there was always a huge pile of shoes by the front door, because I think thirteen people were staying in that house. Madame hostess, you know who you are--thanks!!

Our final stop was in Portland, home of one of my favorite gardens in the world, and lots of good places to eat. There was only one day left to fill, but we filled it. We met yet more of Susan’s family, went to Pearl Bakery, Powell’s City of Books, several neighborhoods, the Japanese Garden (website unfortunately not working), and Paley’s Place.

We came home with a mile-long booklist (as usual), a couple of books (including C.Z.’s already beloved book of symphonic scores which she pored over almost the entire 12-hour trip home) lots of recipes (including the Bangladeshi beef curry!), new nicknames (from Susan’s adorable grandson), a sort-of tan (depending on which person you’re talking about), my sore knee (from the 2000 foot descent at Mt. St. Helen’s, small price to pay!), 200+ photos, and lots of happy memories--various birds including one greedy seagull, tame deer, an octopus motif, a Tibetan bear...Oh, and Susan’s sofa cushion. Oops. Guess she’ll have to come pick it up!

Susan, you are very rich in family and cheer, and we like each vacation better than the last--but I guess you know that!

P.S. I forgot to mention the stars! We stood out in Susan’s yard one night for an hour or more looking at the stars in the clear, high desert sky. We saw shooting stars, and satellites (but no fireballs!) Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen the stars?! I miss them!