NYC Marathon

Today is 42nd NYC Marathon. A sports event that I will watch more for the warm memories it brings up, than the actual event.

My mom loved to travel from our home in Staten Island into Brooklyn to see the runners as they were coming across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge right into our old neighborhood, Bay Ridge. And once you go into Brooklyn for the race, you're not getting back over the bridge for quite some time so she had a day "in the Ridge" as we say. She loved that. Lunch, a little partying, she was a fun lady.

Of course I looked up when the first marathon was held because I look everything up now. Not just because I'm writing a blog, I do it all the time. When I'm reading a book, even fiction, I find myself on the computer checking something out and it leads me to look up something else and then I'm lost for hours just looking up information, just for myself. I like it. I like that pretty much any question I have is at my fingertips.

Today I looked up when the first NYC Marathon was held because 42 years ago I would have been able to look out my bedroom window and watch the runners going over the bridge. And I don't remember that. There is no way it wouldn't have been a big deal when I was 10, especially with my sports crazy mom and the gang of kids in my neighborhood. We would have been having a party in the streets. But as you can see from the little blurb below, copied from Wikipedia, the first Marathon was in Central Park with only 127 competitors. We were already living in Staten Island when it started to become really huge in 1976, I so remember Grete Waitz, I watched little parts of it on TV, and I guess that's when my mom started her treks into Bay Ridge where she would stand for hours at the first viewing point for the spectators cheering on the runners. It became another made up holiday in our family.

I went quite a few times and it was so much fun, really exciting. At the first viewing point in the race, where the runners have just finished 2.7 miles crossing this huge bridge, all of them together, different colors and nations, so pumped to be a part of this event. Cameras, helicopters, it is a sight to see and you feel the excitement in the air!

And the Verrazano Bridge is huge. There's no walking over the bridge. No walking path or even shoulder to stop on.

Years ago, while out with my friends in Bay Ridge, we were driving home over the bridge on a snowy night and the snow chains on the one of the tires in my friend's car broke off a bit. She pulled over on the bridge, and there's not really a place for that on Verrazano Bridge. She got out to just look at what was making all the noise, not like she or any of us could fix it, or even would at this age, but she jumped right back in the car slammed the door and started driving fast, like she wanted off the bridge. Now! She said, "it's a big bridge out there". We cracked up. Like, duh, yeah! But she kept saying no, no, it's really big. Even my poor Aunt Libby, one day driving her old Volkswagen over the bridge, with the floor that was now gone and replaced by cookie sheets, nicknamed "the Daddy Car" by my cousin Doug when he was so little. All Volkswagens were called Daddy Cars by everyone in the family when my Aunt first had this car. And this Daddy Car just stopped on the bridge on. She didn't like it at all! Oh not at all!! Just sat til someone came and she said that even took way too long. It's a big bridge, really!!!

But today is an absolutely perfect fall day in NYC. Added to that, we gained an hour this morning with the end of daylight savings time. It might have been colder this morning, but usually at the first viewing point the runners are starting to take off all their warm clothes, tossing them into the crowd, it's like confetti falling, but instead of colorful paper, it's colorful over shirts, depending on the weather, hats and gloves and scarfs, sweatshirts. My mom loved that part too. Such simple things. Every time the NYC Marathon runs, my mom is the first person I think of. No runners, and I know some who have done the marathon. First my mom.

My mom always made me smell the vanilla extract when she was baking and I love that smell. Truly every time I bake...or make hot chocolate, as I add a little to my cup with a bit of cinnamon too, delicious...I smell the vanilla and think of her, just another beautiful simple gift she passed on to me.

I've just started taking the bottle out and making my niece and nephews smell it every once in a while. Not while baking, which I haven't done in a while, I owe them tons of cookies, but I just think it's such an awesome smell, and besides that it gives me a great feeling, and when I tell them to smell it, it's so great to look at their faces when they do, they are so surprised every time at how good it is, and I've realized that I might have just started the same thing with them that my mom did. Just a simple thing that means so much and can stir up wonderful feelings.

Again that's the NYC Marathon for me.

Today I read there are more than 46,000 runners from around the world. Can you imagine!







From Wikipedia:

History

The first New York City Marathon was held in 1970, organized by New York Road Runners Club presidents Fred Lebow and Vincent Chiappetta, with 127 competitors running several loops around the Park Drive of Central Park. Only about one-hundred spectators watched Gary Muhrcke win the race in 2:31:38. In fact, a total of only 55 runners crossed the finish line.

Over the years, the marathon grew larger and larger. In order to accommodate the growing number of participants, co-founder Fred Lebow redrew the course in 1976 to incorporate all five boroughs of New York City.

The marathon grew in popularity two years later when Norwegian Grete Waitz broke the women's world record, finishing in 2:32:30. She would go on to win the race an unprecedented nine times.

An official wheelchair and handcycle division was introduced in 2000, and starting in 2002, the elite women are given a 35 minute headstart before the elite men and rest of the field.

Thirty-nine years after it was started in 1970, the New York City Marathon has now become the largest marathon anywhere in the world. Each year nearly two million cheering spectators line the course from all different neighborhoods of New York.