The 2021 New York Marathon was not the capstone experience I had hoped it would be. Having run my first marathon through the streets of New York barely a month after 9/11, I was hoping this would be a joyous romp through the five boroughs to celebrate the fading of the pandemic. It was not.
Running 26 miles is always a physical test that magnifies any slight problem. This time, although I made sure to eat the foods I usually eat before a race — and the same as before my last two marathons — my digestive system decided not to cooperate.
So, instead of clicking into a groove around mile 5 or 6, it became clear that the lump in my stomach was not going to resolve into useful fuel, but rather gurgle around as painful gas. That left me staring down 20 miles of tight constrictive roadway.
But I finished, thanks to you.
The other reason I finished was that I’d prepared for the race, I knew my legs could carry me around. Training for long distance running gives you an acute sense of injuries and fitness. I might not run the race as fast as I was hoping, but I knew I’d make it as long as I didn’t stop.
So, I was running this not only for myself, but for you — family, friends, acquaintances. I was running for Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action to which an eclectic group of wonderful folk had donated about $2,000 to fight climate change in my honour. I wasn’t about to let them down.
And, also, bizarrely, as it turns out, I was running for total strangers.
Around the 20 mile mark, near the Western Beef supermarket in the Bronx I heard an older runner talking to the runner next to him.
“My body is full of pain, but my head is all joy.”
It was a beautiful moment of Zen. At that point I had already been running for miles on will power under the bright blue skies. I tried to move into my head and away from my legs and stomach. I stopped looking at my watch or paying attention to the ever-more-spread out mile markers. I put myself out to embrace the joy, the occasion, the random love of the crowds.
That worked for a while. (Including the embedded video, where you can see how slowly I’m running — barely catching up to walking marathoners !)
After I didn’t for my first marathon, for every subsequent Marathon I’ve always worn my name on my shirt. Labeling yourself means that people in the crowd can shout your name, which is surprisingly powerful. Even though you know they don’t know you and even though they know they don’t know you, there’s so much power to hearing your name being used as a token of encouragement.
“Come on Dan, you got this.”
“Nearly there, Dan the Man.”
“Come on Dan, you’re looking great!” (Dear reader, I wasn’t)
It felt authentic. They weren’t real in the sense that these people knew me and wished me well but they were real in the sense that they knew my name and they wished me well. Writing my name on my shirt was just a way of me reaching out to give people in the crowd a way to help me. If only all social media and society was as encouraging to random strangers as the New York marathon crowd. If only all posters on social media had to put in the training that marathon runners put in. What a world that might be.
This was the New York Marathon’s 50th iteration, with the tag line 50 Years Running. My friend Dani and I had amended that for our own use to “50 years, running.” I’d always been physically able and found challenges like the marathon, if not easy, then at least simply manageable. This wasn’t that. It was an extended timeframe of humility. There were lots of encouraging and funny signs on the course, one of them said “There will be a day when you can’t run marathons anymore. This is not that day.”
And it wasn’t.
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You Can Still Help Fight Climate Change
GIVE! You can give here at my my Facebook fundraising page (they can be good when they want to be). If you don’t want to go to Facebook, you can go to Dayenu at https://dayenu.org/donate and make a donation in my name. (On the page just under the blue money blocks there’s a box to click to make “your gift in honor or memory of someone.”)
I Wrote a Few Cool Pieces
I wrote about Neal Stephenson’s new Cli-Fi novel, “Termination Shock” for Book and Film Globe. At 720 pages, it was way too short. If you don’t want to read, you can listen to me read it for you.
https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-termination-shock/
The Arab/Jewish collaboration “Let It Be Morning” won 7 Israeli Academy Awards this year, including for the director, Eran Kolirin (“The Band’s Visit”). I reviewed it for the Forward.
https://forward.com/culture/477518/let-it-be-morning-eran-kolirin-bands-visit-sayed-kashua/
There’s a widespread affordability housing crisis in America. 54,000 Afghan refugees are caught up in this, but with no money, no credit and no history. Some corporate partners are stepping up to help a professional resettlement world that’s operating at breakneck speed.
https://www.hias.org/blog/corporate-partners-help-afghans-find-shelter-perfect-housing-storm
What happens when you find out that your grandfather, a Johnny Appleseed figure, was also a prime mover of recial separation? That’s what happened to Michal Weits and she made a film about it, “Blue Box.”
https://forward.com/culture/477501/yosef-weitz-blue-box-documentary-israel-palestine-michel-weits/