The New York Marathon

Yesterday was the New York marathon. People choose to run 26.2miles across the city for fun.

Meanwhile only several blocks away I was undertaking a marathon of my own.

A pastrami sandwich from the Carnegie Deli.

I had to take a few pit stops, fight the meat sweats, throw a glass of water over my head but I got there.

After my successful completion of a $20 sandwich I walked up to Central Park to see the end of the marathon. It started at 10am and at 5pm these poor bastards were still running. The athletes obviously finished several hours ago. The ones left were the troopers. Jogging, or rather that sort of shuffle that’s kind of half way between a walk and a jog.

It was a really nice atmosphere. There were still people out cheering. These were the ones doing it to raise money or doing it for themselves and their soul not for the glory. People in the crowd were shouting out encouragingly to them as they shuffled by.
“Good job Gail”
“Come on Andrew”

Some runners had their names written on their shirt. The nice thing is, they weren’t taking the piss, they were genuinely encouraging these people who had been shuffling for the past 7 hours all over New York. People were shouting reassurance, telling them that they were nearly there and were doing great. They really were. I mean clearly these people cannot run and many were old but they were about to complete the world’s biggest marathon which really is a feat for any fitness level.

It was positively inspiring.

It made me have faith in humanity. It made me want to have positive Americans around for moral support whenever I was challenged. I would have liked a cheerleader and hour earlier at the deli.

"Come on you can eat it. If you scrape off that bit of fat it will make it okay you just consumed half a kilo of cured meat and three pickles. Good job. Good eating"

And it made me, for the second time this month consider investing in runners and maybe becoming semi athletic.

Looking at these people run this last kilometre utterly exhausted, I soon came to my senses and thought better of it.

I’ll stick to sandwiches.