Not the fastest marathon I’ve ever run (in fact, at 5:20, it’s the slowest) but it was certainly the most life changing. Everything about this race was different from my previous experience. The swanky hotel in Midtown, the jam packed transportation system, the hours, and I mean hours, we all spent standing up.

I’ll start there. If you hate standing cheek by jowl next to people you have never met, this is not the race for you. The subway ride from Midtown down to the ferry: Jam packed with runners as well as bewildered locals from where I boarded at 40th and 7th that only got even more jammed as the subway made stop after stop on its 20 minute journey to exiting at the Staten Island ferry. Standing together in a crowd of nearly a thousand to file onto the ferry, where I was able to get some respite by sitting on a bench for the trip to the shuttle buses at Staten Island.

The, and I am not bullshitting you here – at all – ninety minute wait to board shuttles to get to the the start corrals at Fort Wadsworth. Met some interesting people and had some good conversations. Not a lot else to do, so why not?

Skipping the marathon experience for a later post, let’s discuss the jam packed subway ride from 77th and Broadway back to our various stops in Midtown and further south. Packed, in case one needs to remember, with runners who had just finished running an entire marathon in warm humid weather.

And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

ADDING THIS NOW WHILE I STILL HAVE A FEW MINUTES BEFORE MY FLIGHT BOARDS:

The gorgeous hardwood forest you have to walk through to get to the start corrals. The windy path you take, once it is announced that you are free to begin running, to get to the actual start line.

That bridge from Staten Island over to Brooklyn, which is a surprise in how steep your first mile is.

Eleven miles of Brooklyn, where it felt like the entire borough came out to cheer you on, at full volume. My ears rang after the first few miles of that.

The wonderful mile run through Williamsburg, one of the largest Jewish communities in the US. Not a lot of cheering, but a few coming out to watch, waving their kids’ hands for them to do their part in cheering us on. The number of schools, synagogues and other buildings, inscribed in Hebrew.

The absolute diversity of Brooklyn itself. If I ever have to move to NYC, that will be the borough I’d settle in.

The quiet respite of the 1.5 mile climb up the Queensborough Bridge that seemed to never end. Until it finally did, by dumping you into absolutely the loudest crowd of cheering people I’d ever heard in my life outside a concert or sports stadium: First Avenue in Manhattan. Three and a half miles of the loudest crowd you could ever bear to hear without earplugs or covering your head with the palms of your hands.

And finally, the finish. A three mile run into and around Central Park to the finish line.

My heart is full, literally. Gotta find a way to do this again!