Marathon Spectator

Fred and I headed into the city at about 11 AM to watch PrettyBird run the New York City Marathon. Getting to the 6 wasn't a problem at all. Getting onto the 6 was. Massive crowd. Twin baby carriage. We crammed ourselves on and then when the doors closed, someone sent Fred flying into some woman, over the carriage, and me into Fred. Everyone was okay, but it was a scary moment considering the jam-packed babies and Fred's rattled body that shouldn't be rattled. After about 5 stops, the crowd lessened. Almost everyone had signs. The 6 was full of marathon enthusiasts.

We got to where we thought PrettyBird would be on the Upper East Side earlier than the estimated time. We took a side trip into Rite Aid. We hadn't received any texts yet. PrettyBird had signed us up to receive texts about her whereabouts. We found a spot in a gas station--I love seeing gas stations in NYC because they're so rare--where cheerleaders were set up. We stood behind the cones and watched them cheer, which also gave us a good vantage point to see the racers who were heading our way. It was also a good spot because a lot of the people were not paying attention to where they were going and they walked into the rope wrapped around the cones that set off the space for the cheerleaders. I had a lot of fun with that. We saw people running up to the sidelines to catch the runner they were there to support. We figured they got texts. I finally guessed that maybe we weren't getting a text because it was nearing 1 PM and unless PrettyBird had a massive catastrophe, she shouldn't have been that far off her estimate.

The runners were fun to watch. I saw some of them eating the goo that PrettyBird told me about. When people run for hours on end, they get hungry, so they can rip open this goo stuff and down some water and that gives them energy to keep going. I saw some walkers, but mostly everyone was jogging slowly, and we were at Mile 18. A whole French squad of runners cheered and waved at the cheerleaders. They made the crowd get very loud and happy again, the Frenchmen, not the cheerleaders. Two guys were dressed as Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Elvis was running. A lot of people wore goofy wigs and neon colors. Some people in the crowd had on wigs or costumes or carried funny bright signs. It was a good way to find each other. We knew PrettyBird was wearing a red shirt and black shorts. So of course I noticed everyone in red. I was like, She should have worn a different color. Fred pointed out that if she wore blue, I'd see only the blue shirts, purple, only the purple, and so on. Good point.

After about an hour, somehow we missed PrettyBird from afar, because she was suddenly right in front of us, passing us by. I was screaming and waving our signs and Fred was yelling her name and taking her picture. Yeah, she totally didn't see us and Fred got a faraway picture of the back of her head. Plus, PrettyBird was wearing her i-Pod which was not conducive to her hearing us yell from such a distance.

I asked if we should follow the route uptown a few stops. Fred suggested we walk over to the park on 5th instead. I showed her the map and she did some fancy calculations, guestimating that PrettyBird would be there in about half an hour to forty minutes. I was like, it's not going to take us that long to walk from 1st to 5th. We stopped at Starbucks and Fred got a cider. I was hungry but didn't see anything there I wanted, and I didn't want to get a drink because the only bathrooms around were porter potties.

We made our way to 5th and found that the course was much narrower there. We started to see people we recognized from the first time around so I told Fred to be on the ready. That was premature. Oops. We didn't recognize a lot of people for a long time. Then we would see one or two who were familiar. We realized that we looked at different people on 1st because I didn't recognize her people and vice versa. We never saw Elvis again and that was the main guy we were looking for. I finally saw the Braveheart people so that's when I knew she was closer. Fred's battery died in the waiting time. People were in pain. Some were dragging. It didn't look like fun anymore. Some spectators were crossing the route, one guy on a bike. That was something I wasn't going to do.

Then PrettyBird appeared out of nowhere yet again. I held up our signs and Fred and I screamed. PrettyBird looked slightly startled and then raised her arms and waved back at us. She told us later that she didn't see us on 1st and looking for us had kept her busy. It was nice to surprise her that late in the marathon; we were at Mile 20-something and it was almost over by then. She didn't look like she was struggling like the others. The guy behind her put out his hands as if she were going to stop. Seriously, who's gonna stop in the middle of the street and back track when they're almost finished?

Fred and I walked down the route some more and tried to figure out how to get across to the west side so we could take a better subway downtown and not have to get on the 6 again, aka The Possibility of Death Train. I had a lame idea of crossing into the park when the marathoners did, but didn't realize in my theory that we would still have to cross through the racers, and that was not on my agenda. We walked more and then I walked right by Michael J. Fox.

I alerted Fred of my celebrity sighting in my uber cool way; I stage whispered, MichaelJFoxMichaelJFox urgently in her ear. She was like, wow, I thought the Fox balloons were for the channel or something. He had a team running to support his charity, which became obvious from the balloons and signs. In fact, a lot of charities and teams were running. We saw one called Fred's Team, but Fred was not part of that one. I also planned to run my own marathon the next day because I do not like publicity. Actually, it was for 40 miles and called the DLDM, Down Low Double Marathon. I won. I was the only one running it. It took seven hours. That's fabulous time considering how I wore myself out walking all those miles to watch PrettyBird run. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fred was impressed with my clever code for seeing Michael J. Fox. What she didn't realize was that whenever I see any celebrity, my code is actually to stage whisper as frantically as possible, MichaelJFoxMichaelJFox. It was serendipitous that the celebrity this time actually was Michael J. Fox.

We somehow started hiking through the Ramble in Central Park. The marathon ends at Tavern On The Green, but we were in dirt. Some of the runners who had finished were walking around, wearing those metallic capes. One crossed our path and Fred clapped for her. I tried to congratulate her by saying, Good for you, but it came out, Good for yoooooooo, which Fred pointed out sounded quite sarcastic. I agreed not to congratulate any more marathoners because I was simply making them feel bad about themselves. We kept seeing that same lady and I felt like I was making her day miserable. Finally, we found out that we had to walk over to 85th and get out of the park that way. Yeay, we made it to the west side and I have no idea how.

We hadn't heard from PrettyBird and we still didn't receive even one text, but I was pretty sure that, lest she had keeled over or was mauled by a lizard, she'd finished the race by then. I bought a pretzel. Correction--I bought a shit load of salt with some pretzel attached. It made me so thirsty but I had to pee by this time so I was not having anything to drink. We started walking. Fred had wanted to go to 23rd for something, but she was tired by this time and said that Columbus Circle would be fine for what she needed. We walked from 85th to 59th with the crowd. I tried not to make eye contact with the runners lest I make them feel lousy. We walked in the middle of the street because it was closed off to traffic and there wouldn't really be another time when I'd be able to do so. I felt like I was in a parade! That made me happy.

We got to Columbus Circle after having bought cotton candy and finished it up rather quickly. This was turning out to be a great date. We popped into WilliamSonoma after waiting in the middle of a large crowd for three light changes until we could cross the street. That was horrible. Then we found a bathroom, hallelujah. We headed down to Whole Foods to see if PrettyBird was there--that's where she was meeting her parents. No sign of them so we went back downtown to Penn on a regular subway line. We also wound up on the same train home as PrettyBird. Fred texted her and we found out that she treated herself to a KrispyKreme. We didn't find her on the train though, so we simply went home. Our feet hurt. We were cold. The marathon had taken a lot out of us. Heh heh.

Congrats, PrettyBird. 4 hours and 20 some odd minutes? A tremendous accomplishment. Well done.