Keep on Running (13 page)

  It made me realise just how relaxing the day before a marathon needs to be, and so we relaxed in style on board the Circle Line boat trip around Manhattan Island – a spectacular trip which takes you past the densely packed skyscrapers of the financial district at the southern end of Manhattan and up to the rocks and woods at the northernmost tip. The guide offered a particular welcome to the marathon runners among us, adding that we were all more entertaining on the Monday after the race, creeping around gingerly, going downstairs barefoot and backwards.

  On a more sombre note, he said that on September 11, just two years earlier, his boat was about to go out when the attacks started. They saw the smoke and then the flames. The boat was evacuated and then became part of the fleet getting people off Manhattan. His boat transported around 5,000 people away from New York City's central island that day.

  Back in the present, race preparation continued on the Saturday evening when mum and I dropped into the MS runners' and supporters' reception at the Paramount Hotel. We arranged for mum to meet up with them the next morning so she could go with them to the MS cheering point on First Avenue. It was all falling into place. All that remained now was the usual near-sleepless night ahead, made all the worse by jet lag.

  I was asleep by 9.30 p.m., but awoke at about 1 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. I lay there waiting for the 4.30 wake-up call. I was up and in my running kit by about 4.35 a.m. and then waited some more before leaving the hotel at 5.20 a.m. for the great odyssey of getting to the start – an undertaking almost as great as the marathon itself.

  The New York City Marathon, as I have said, starts from Staten Island, south of Manhattan Island, and the easiest way to get there is to catch a bus from central Manhattan. The marathon buses were leaving between 5 and 7 a.m. from the New York City Library on Fifth Avenue, and at 5.30 a.m., more or less the only people around were runners. On the way I got chatting to a chap from Memphis, Tennessee, who was on his sixth marathon, and then to an English guy who'd been living for the past few years in Indianapolis, now doing his first marathon in quite some years. I enjoyed the chance to swap notes and tips on the bus. The race-day camaraderie was starting early.

  We got to Staten Island at about ten to six, which seemed ludicrously early for the 10.10 a.m. marathon start. But there was no choice but to be there early. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, over which we'd just driven, is the first thing you run over. It closes to traffic at 7.30 a.m. on marathon morning. And so hours stretched ahead.

  Our waiting area was in the grounds of Fort Wadsworth, a former United States military installation now maintained by the National Park Service. Some people lay down in the big field. Many of them simply fell asleep. But I was too psyched up. By now it was light and there was a good atmosphere building with a jazz band playing, soon to be replaced by a brilliant blues band from California called Blues Barbecue.

  For breakfast I nibbled some bagels and had a yoghurt drink and a power bar. I also had coffee and took on a decent amount of water, but mostly I just lay on the grass and enjoyed the music – when I wasn't waiting in queues for the loo. I also visited what was quaintly billed as the world's longest urinal – a long, downhill, open trough which must have had a Niagara-like flow in its lower reaches.

  Organisation was good, and time passed relatively quickly. Before long, we began to think about moving into the starting area, which was broken down into sections according to your bib number, though no one took too much notice. I joined the race queue at about ten o'clock and we soon started to move forward, easing slowly up and out onto the approach to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. It was a beautiful day, very warm with very blue skies. Crowning it all was Frank Sinatra, presumably not in person, singing 'New York, New York' in the background. Perfect motivation, which pumped us up nicely.

  When the gun went off, initially we didn't move. I thought we'd be there for ages but then the familiar slow shuffle started. And then everyone broke into a trot and I was across the line in just over two minutes – the ideal start. Even better was the fact that the bridge was very wide and there was no bunching whatsoever. This was perfect race thinking, enabling the maximum number of people to get off to precisely the kind of start they wanted. The bridge was huge and imposing, easily absorbing the tens of thousands of runners now pouring onto it.

  I was able to get straight into my game plan, starting to pick up a succession of eight-minute miles, which was very much my aim. I was running against a previous best time of 3:53 in London earlier that year, and eight-minute miles were key to my plan of attack. Much more than ever before, I'd planned the race, knew what I needed to do and intended to do it – even if that meant giving much freer rein than ever before to the time-obsessed anorak just waiting to come out of my closet. I had to think in minutes, I had to think in miles and I had to get my calculations right.

  The runners spilled out across the various levels of the bridge, and soon I was in one of the enclosed levels, which seemed a shame at first. I thought initially that it would have been better to be out on the top, but actually it was great in terms of atmosphere. It was mostly open at the sides so you lost little in terms of looking at the view, but every now and again, where the sides were more solid, everyone compensated by whooping loudly with great echoing effect.

  To our left was the lower Manhattan skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center so sorely missed. Ten years before, when Fiona and I had visited New York, we'd marvelled at the towers, astonished at their immensity and solidity. We spent hours at the top of one of them, wandering around, enjoying the view and relishing the sheer thrill of visiting buildings which redefined the word massive. Their absence now was shocking.

  Also visible to our left was the Statue of Liberty, instantly recognisable and so much a symbol of the city and all that it stood for. Just to see it made me tingle. I knew we were in for an exciting day. In the foreground, just below the bridge, a couple of boats were squirting a multicoloured tribute to the runners – jets of red, white and blue water. Very impressive and all part of the fun.

  One sad moment came when a guy took a tumble just half a mile in. He was writhing on the ground, clutching his knee in agony. He'd clearly fallen very heavily. I hoped his race wasn't over, but I suspected it was. He would have done very well to come back from that. Maybe he'd been clipped by another runner; maybe he'd just taken his eye off the ball. Poor chap. I really felt for him that morning. He was one of us, and he could have been any one of us. He'd put in months of training. He'd been looking forward to it all and planning it for weeks. And then that happened.

  For the rest of us, it was a timely reminder of the need to concentrate. There are greater dangers when there is bunching; but whatever the conditions, you have always got to be race aware. And even then, there will be times when sheer misfortune will get you and there is nothing you can do.

  The first mile marker came just before the end of the bridge, which underlines just what an impressive structure it is – a bridge so long that it was one of the first structures ever built to have to take into account the earth's curvature. From there we ran into Brooklyn, which proved one of the big treats of the run. First we were on a kind of freeway and then pulled off it onto a slip road, at the top of which were the first roadside spectators of the day, setting the tone for the entire event with their enthusiastic shouts of 'Welcome to Brooklyn!'

  After that, we were soon into the populated areas; wide, leafy avenues lined by attractive brick or coloured houses several storeys high and all looking very smart. The main shopping areas were great too, and here the crowds were impressive and very vocal. There were lots of 'Go, man!' shouts all the way, a terrific, totally intoxicating atmosphere which was typical of the entire course from this point onwards. They don't just shout 'Come on' and your name. They give it the full works: 'You can do it, go man, Phil baby!' or 'Go, Phil, go!' And, yes, I was milking the shouts a fair amount. It was all part of the fun and the indescribable thrill of running the New York City Marathon. I had to keep saying it to myself: I am running the New York City Marathon. And still I couldn't quite believe it.

  Uplifting and poignant was the fact that along the course we passed probably a dozen fire stations, each with a fire engine on show, mostly with the firefighters sitting on top, sometimes with the ladder extended, firefighters straddling it. All very moving in the light of September 11, so recent and so raw a memory that year. It was as if the firefighters were turning out to applaud the city which had applauded them when they responded in its days of need. I felt proud and privileged to be there with them in their city. How could I not be inspired?

  Looking at the map earlier, I'd thought that the race wouldn't really take off until we were on Manhattan, the central island borough and the bit that we all conventionally think of as New York. But the 12 and a bit miles of Brooklyn were fantastic; mostly neat and attractive, always colourful and lively, and wonderfully enhanced by the bright sunshine of an increasingly warm day. Thank goodness for that, I remember thinking. Pamela, who'd trained me for my first London, had told me tales of the weather extremes you can get in New York on the first weekend in November. One year it might be freezing, another absolutely boiling. Just for sheer comfort's sake in those early stages, I was pleased that we were inching towards the hot end of the scale.

  I was clocking up my eight-minute miles and occasionally thinking that I was going too fast and would regret it later, but at the same time I was thinking I should just make merry while I could and get the miles in the bank while the going was good. It seemed a balancing act and I tilted it in favour of enjoying present exhilaration. The euphoria was enormous: I wanted to exploit it; and I wanted to amass distance at a time when I felt I was running well. Let the future take care of itself.

  The considerations and calculations that usually fill my head in a marathon started to slip just a little into the background. Or rather, they started to become part of the bigger picture. I'd been determined to cling to them, but it wasn't long before sheer enjoyment of the day started to seem an equally important imperative. Why hammer myself about minutes and miles when everything around me is so damned interesting? There was a constant sensation of 'Am I really doing this?' as I passed through Brooklyn. Nor yet can I believe that I also ran through Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx on that glorious day. It was a blissful run, every street a new discovery.

  As I look back on it now, I can see that so much of what you take to be tiredness in another place on another day is simply lack of stimulation. I think of those long boring sections early and mid-race in London – boring partly, no doubt, because they seem so familiar and so un-exotic to a Brit. On my sunny Sunday morning in Brooklyn, on the other hand, there was endless stimulation, pushing further and further back the inevitable moment when genuine tiredness really would start to take its toll.

  And so the miles mounted, each new eight-minute mile a pleasure and a relief. I even started to feel expectation grow within me. Having cracked 4:00 in London, cracking 3:50 was the target now. I wanted 3:40-something. 3:40-anything was the aim – territory I had never before entered. My half-marathon time left me with just over two hours to achieve it in. A few quick calculations confirmed that the 3:40s were looking within my grasp, and just the thought of them proved a spur as the miles ticked by.

  The 2 miles of Queens, the third borough of the day, consisted largely of industrial-type buildings, but, uninspiring as they were, they were definitely a staging post, all part of the progress towards the Queensboro Bridge which was to take us over the East River onto Manhattan Island for the first time.

  The bridge is so huge that it starts a long way back on land. More importantly, it starts with the 15-mile marker, which I reached in 2:01. From the rare occasions I had paid much attention to my training schedule, I knew that I was supposed to be reaching 15 in 2:05 if I was going to do a sub-3:45 marathon. In training I had managed it a couple of times, but then only by about half a minute. Now I'd smashed it.

  It sounds terribly anal now, of course, but anyone who has ever pushed themselves in a marathon will know: these things matter, and they matter hugely. You need to know how you are doing; you need to assess; you need to adjust. You need to keep the focus and, to do that, you need to find an approach that is right for you. So much marathon talk is far too dogmatic, far too prescriptive, neglecting the fact that for the most part it simply isn't an exact science. Far from it. It's all about reaching conclusions that suit you and then modifying them whenever experience suggests you should do so.

  By now, I was starting to think of myself as a reasonably experienced marathon runner, and with that went the need to use that experience to my advantage. As I ran, I thought back to Pamela's point about having three finishing times in mind. Her argument was that fixating on one particular time is potentially the road to disappointment, too absolute an approach over such a long distance. You need to be able to adjust your expectations on the hoof, as it were. What might seem achievable at the start might very quickly seem impossible once you start to factor in the real-life running conditions.

  But in New York quite the opposite was happening: the dream was starting to seem ever more likely. Things were starting to slip into place. My times were confirming that the 3:40s – that inviting ten-minute time zone – were there for the taking. I had achieved comfortably my fastest 15 miles ever; confidence was coursing through my legs.